In today's threat landscape, obtaining initial access to a target system is often done using sophisticated and highly personalized social engineering tactics such as spear phishing. You invest in security awareness training, but how effective is it in practice? The only way to get real insight is to simulate these targeted attacks under controlled conditions.In many cases, social engineers exploit the target’s credulity or helpfulness to test an organization’s resilience to this type of external attack. Testing is done to assess the individual's ability to recognize and report threats.Once an assessment pinpoints where it may be possible to gain access to systems via non-technical methods, preparing an organization to adequately handle comparable real-world threats is the next step.

Similarly to other security assessments, an important shared responsibility is scope definition. We agree on a list of relevant company staff, locations, and methods to be included in testing.Once the conditions are clear, our team starts the engagement and tests the resilience of the organization, looking for any potential avenues to gain access.

At the end of the process, you will receive a testing report that contains a list of tests performed, details on how well the organization has responded and identified them, and the range of sensitive data we were able to acquire.Based on the results, we will be able to share solid guidance to help prepare against this type of threat in the future. To ensure your team fully understands the details, we offer an optional debriefing session upon request.Social Engineering is definitely a type of testing worth repeating on at least a yearly basis, even with different testing providers.