COMMON ATTACK PATTERN ENUMERATION AND CLASSIFICATIONLive MITRE record

CAPEC-416

Manipulate Human Behavior

An adversary exploits inherent human psychological predisposition to influence a targeted individual or group to solicit information or manipulate the target into performing an action that serves the adversary's interests. Many interpersonal social engineering techniques do not involve outright deception, although they can; many are subtle ways of manipulating a target to remove barriers, make the target feel comfortable, and produce an exchange in which the target is either more likely to share information directly, or let key information slip out unintentionally. A skilled adversary uses these techniques when appropriate to produce the desired outcome. Manipulation techniques vary from the overt, such as pretending to be a supervisor to a help desk, to the subtle, such as making the target feel comfortable with the adversary's speech and thought patterns.

Abstraction

Meta

Typical severity

Medium

Likelihood of attack

Medium

Understand the attack

What is this attack pattern?

An adversary exploits inherent human psychological predisposition to influence a targeted individual or group to solicit information or manipulate the target into performing an action that serves the adversary's interests. Many interpersonal social engineering techniques do not involve outright deception, although they can; many are subtle ways of manipulating a target to remove barriers, make the target feel comfortable, and produce an exchange in which the target is either more likely to share information directly, or let key information slip out unintentionally. A skilled adversary uses these techniques when appropriate to produce the desired outcome. Manipulation techniques vary from the overt, such as pretending to be a supervisor to a help desk, to the subtle, such as making the target feel comfortable with the adversary's speech and thought patterns.

Requirements

What does the attack require?

Prerequisites

  • The adversary must have the means and knowledge of how to communicate with the target in some manner.

Skills required

Not stated in the MITRE record.

Resources required

Not stated in the MITRE record.

Impact

What does a successful attack lead to?

Other

Affected scopes: Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability

Defence

How is it prevented and mitigated?

1
An organization should provide regular, robust cybersecurity training to its employees to prevent successful social engineering attacks.