Social engineering is the most cost effective, and often the simplest method of cracking an organization’s defenses. Phishing (and social engineering as a whole) is a proven viable threat. The key to launching effective social-based attacks is intelligence; knowing more about the situation than your mark does. After that, you combine the intelligence with misdirection, and/or emotional pretense, to make the mark perform an action of some kind, or share information. With social engineering, the goal is still information in most cases, but actions are a viable option depending on the circumstance.”]