Social engineering is the design and implementation of human interactions, systems, and incentives in a group, institution, or community to accomplish explicit objectives of the designer. Examples of such systems and incentives include socially responsible investing and subsidies, taxes and other confiscations of private property, regulations, and socialism. The mechanisms of social engineering include behaviors in social transactions, human biology, and cyberspace. Social engineers may be malevolent or benevolent, and their designs may have intended and unintended consequences.

A social engineering attack in cyberspace is an example of malevolency in which a hacker illicitly gathers and manipulates information about others’ human interactions and systems to obtain, disrupt, or compromise information about an organization or its computer systems. Another example of malevolent social engineering is the early ...