The Human Backdoor: How Social Engineering Bypasses Your Security
They didn’t need your password. They didn’t need to breach your firewall. They just needed your assistant to trust the voice on the other end.
Welcome to social engineering — the most reliable point of entry for adversaries targeting high-value individuals and executive teams.
What Is Social Engineering?
Social engineering is the use of deception, manipulation, or influence to convince someone to grant access, share sensitive data, or perform an action that creates risk.
It doesn’t rely on technical exploits. It relies on human ones.
Think of it as the psychological attack surface.
How It Works
Profiling the target: Using OSINT, adversaries map your patterns, contacts, and behaviors.
Pretext creation: They build a believable backstory — posing as a vendor, colleague, scheduler, or authority figure.
Engagement: A call, email, text, or even physical approach — timed when you or your team are most vulnerable (travel days, conference events, end-of-week rush).
Extraction: They don’t ask for passwords. They ask for confirmations, resends, logins, or calendar details. Enough to move to Phase 2.
Examples You Won’t See in the Headlines
A "media coordinator" requests a quick email verification to prep a CEO's interview kit — it includes a spoofed Dropbox link.
A "logistics rep" texts an EA during an event and claims the VIP pickup has changed. She redirects the principal.
A "VC analyst" emails a founder with familiar details pulled from old decks, asking for a resend of updated materials.
No breach. No malware. Just human trust — exploited.
Why It Works
People want to be helpful
Assistants are trained to move fast, not verify deeply
Familiar details create false credibility
Urgency bypasses critical thinking
Social engineering rarely feels like an attack
What You Can Do
Pre-brief staff and family before travel or events — set default denial policies
Remove public contact structures where possible — no exposed emails or calendars
Red team your communication flow — simulate a pretext attack
Create escalation paths — nothing gets confirmed without secondary authentication
Get a behavioral exposure snapshot — we assess not just what’s online, but who can be convinced
You spent six figures on cybersecurity. Don’t get taken by a phone call.
Edge Point Group simulates real-world social engineering threats — and shows you exactly how close someone already is to walking through your human firewall.