RT-SOEN – Social Engineering
RT-SOEN – Social Engineering
About Course
*** Currently available at a reduced price while video lessons are in production. All written lessons and assessments are complete and fully accessible now. Video content will be added over the coming months at no additional cost to enrolled students. ***
This course lays out a complete, professional curriculum for authorized offensive social engineering within red-team programs. You will learn human-centric tradecraft from first contact to closeout: elicitation, influence, pretext design, and how to blend these skills with physical covert campaigns and hybrid ops. The course covers target research, story framing, voice and presence, space cues, timing, and escalation control, all anchored to clear Rules of Engagement and safety protocols. Learners practice comms and deconfliction, document every action for audit, and produce reusable artifacts such as pretext briefs, wardrobe and prop lists, comms trees, and AAR templates. The result is a team that executes cleanly, protects the client and the operator, and can prove its work.
What Will You Learn?
- Design and validate social engineering campaigns that support covert and hybrid engagements
- Create ethical, authorized pretexts and escalation paths for human interaction testing
- Map human attack surface including suppliers, contractors, and employee behaviors
- Convert social findings into operational inputs, detection tests, and mitigations
- Coordinate social campaigns with physical and tech-based actions
Course Content
Foundations of Offensive Social Engineering
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Definitions, scope and ethical boundaries for authorized SE
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Integration of social engineering into red-team campaigns
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Authorization, consent, and escalation protocols
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Balancing realism with legal/ethical limits
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Measuring impact and defensibility
Human Attack Surface Mapping
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Identifying target roles, vendor touchpoints and insider pathways
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Persona-driven mapping of influence vectors
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Social graph construction from OSINT and HUMINT
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Prioritizing human targets by access value
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Documenting human-surface provenance
Pretext Development & Narrative Design
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Building believable pretexts for physical and remote approaches
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Layered narratives: plausibility, backstory, and contingencies
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Persona blending and role alignment
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Validation and rehearsal workflows
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Pretext risk assessment and kill-switches
Elicitation, Conversational Techniques & Influence
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Open vs closed elicitation strategies for information gain
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Framing, mirroring, and behavioral levers in conversational flow
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Time-based elicitation and scheduling tactics
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Ethical escalation and safe disengagement methods
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Documentation of elicitation outcomes for auditability
In-Person Social Engineering & Covert Contact
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Approach patterns and non-confrontational engagement tactics
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Using physical presence to collect behavioral and environmental cues
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Managing suspicion and exit strategies
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Safety considerations for in-person contacts
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Recording and reporting in-person interaction results
Telephony & Voice-based Operations
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Call planning, plausible caller identities and escalation paths
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VoIP vs PSTN considerations for operations
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Voice elicitation techniques and call steering
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Call recording, consent, and legal constraints
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Handoff templates for follow-up technical actions
Digital Social Engineering (Phishing, Vishing, SMiShing)
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Campaign design and targeting strategies
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Safety controls for phishing simulations and containment
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Landing pages, telemetry capture, and evidence tagging
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Coordination with IR and SOC to prevent accidental escalations
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Measuring success vs detection outcomes
Vendor & Third-Party Social Engineering
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Targeting suppliers, contractors and outsourced staff ethically
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Exploiting vendor processes and delivery relationships
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Payment, procurement, and authority spoofing narratives
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Mapping third-party human touchpoints to operational objectives
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Vendor escalation and coordination templates
Insider-Influence & Recruitment (Ethical Considerations)
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Distinguishing recruitment, elicitation, and coercion risks
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Ethical and legal limits for insider-focused campaigns
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Indicators of voluntary vs coerced insider behavior
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Safe reporting and mitigation pathways
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Use-case scenarios for detection testing without harm
Physical-Linked SE Campaigns (Door, Delivery, Escorting)
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Coordinating social actions with physical ingress attempts
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Using delivery and parking narratives to enable access
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Escort prompting and visitor management exploitation (authorized)
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Timing and sequencing social cues with recon activities
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Safe abort criteria when social cues fail
OpSec, Anonymity & Digital Footprint Management
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Protecting operational identities and traces
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Pseudonym creation, persona hygiene and operational layering
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Digital footprint minimization for long campaigns
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Credential separation and compartmentalization
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Post-operation identity clean-up processes
Legal, Ethical & Psychological Safety Considerations
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Informed authorization and stakeholder sign-offs
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Psychological safety for targets and operators
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Handling sensitive disclosures during operations
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Regulatory triggers and mandatory reporting
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Debriefing and support for affected personnel
Tools, Templates & Campaign Orchestration
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Campaign management platforms and scheduling tools
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Evidence capture templates for social interactions
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Playbooks for multi-channel social campaigns
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Automation vs manual engagement trade-offs
Advanced Social Engineering Techniques & Trends
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Deepfake and synthetic media considerations for SE
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Multi-vector blending: combining social, physical, and digital cues
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Targeted influence via micro-segmentation and behavioral profiling
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Emerging human-centric attack surfaces (e.g., gig economy)
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Responsible use of advanced capabilities under authorization

