COMMON ATTACK PATTERN ENUMERATION AND CLASSIFICATIONLive MITRE record

CAPEC-415

Pretexting via Phone

An adversary engages in pretexting behavior, assuming some sort of trusted role, and contacting the targeted individual or organization via phone to solicit information from target persons, or manipulate the target into performing an action that serves the adversary's interests. This is the most common social engineering attack. Some of the most commonly effective approaches are to impersonate a fellow employee, impersonate a computer technician or to target help desk personnel.

Abstraction

Detailed

Typical severity

Low

Likelihood of attack

Medium

Understand the attack

What is this attack pattern?

An adversary engages in pretexting behavior, assuming some sort of trusted role, and contacting the targeted individual or organization via phone to solicit information from target persons, or manipulate the target into performing an action that serves the adversary's interests. This is the most common social engineering attack. Some of the most commonly effective approaches are to impersonate a fellow employee, impersonate a computer technician or to target help desk personnel.

Requirements

What does the attack require?

Prerequisites

  • Target application or infrastructure exposes an exploitable vulnerability surface.

Skills required

Not stated in the MITRE record.

Resources required

Not stated in the MITRE record.