social engineering

[soh-shuhl en-juh-neer-ing]

noun

1. Political Science.,  the manipulation of social beliefs and behaviors by public or private entities through legislation, policy, and investment.

2. a technique that uses psychological manipulation, fraud, or dishonesty to force people to disclose private personal or corporate information, or to take a particular action.

   Hackers are using social engineering to perpetrate phishing scams.

social engineering

noun

1. the manipulation of the social position and function of individuals in order to manage change in a society

Other Word Forms

• social engineer noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of social engineering¹

First recorded in 1895–1900

Example Sentences

Now we have Reese Witherspoon, already a major force in American publishing, teaming up with Harlan Coben, one of the world’s biggest selling thriller writers, to create “Gone Before Goodbye,” a book that taps into our fascination with the follies of the impossibly rich at the same time that it ponders real questions about the ethics of social engineering via medical advances in organ regeneration.

From Los Angeles Times

Wikipedia is supposed to be a general encyclopedia, not a vehicle for social engineering.

From Slate

It’s a vicious cycle of events: Republicans break things, Democrats spend years fixing them — and then the GOP takes credit for the positive outcome, all while decrying “big government” and “social engineering.”

From Salon

"No young person should be told they're not welcome based solely on leftist social engineering."

From BBC

The German parent company added that the hackers were "able to obtain personally identifiable data related to the majority of Allianz Life's customers, financial professionals, and select Allianz Life employees, using a social engineering technique".

From BBC