Social Engineering Penetration Testing: What You Need to Know

Social engineering penetration tests are controlled simulations that mimic real-world scams exploiting human error. Common attack types include phishing, vishing, pretexting, and baiting. Each test involves scoping, intelligence gathering, scenario design, monitoring, and reporting, helping identify which tactics employees are most vulnerable to. These tests can occur on-site, off-site, or as a hybrid approach. To strengthen defenses, organizations should invest in employee training, run regular simulations, and enhance technical controls and incident response plans.

Social engineering is the malicious act of tricking people into providing access to sensitive information, whether for financial gain or to cause genuine harm. Statistics show that scams, phishing, and business email compromise are among the most prevalent forms of this type of manipulation, and attack vectors are only getting more sophisticated.

Therefore, our experts insist more than ever that companies of all sizes take steps to test and analyze weaknesses that could lead to social engineering leaking data or causing harm to their customers and reputations.

In this guide, we explore how social engineering penetration testing can help to prevent human-focused attacks, what’s involved in typical tests, and what best practices you can follow to protect your systems and data in the years to come.

What Is Social Engineering Penetration Testing?

Social engineering penetration testing is a type of security analysis that involves simulating scams and attacks on company employees to see how easy they are to exploit with typical vectors.

Testing employee susceptibility to scams is growing increasingly important. Verizon’s Data Breach Investigation Report claims that around 68% of all breaches include some form of human element, and that despite advances in technology, social engineering tactics remain steadfast as the years go by:

“Regardless of the exact method that attackers use to reach organizations, the core tactic is the same: They seek to exploit our human nature and our willingness to trust and be helpful for their own gain. While these attacks all share that commonality, one rather significant difference is the scale and pervasiveness of these tactics.”

Verizon DBIR 2024

Crucially, social engineering analysis (unlike other types of penetration testing) largely focuses on the human risks that technical analyses can miss. Are there gaps in training or knowledge, for example, that could be suggested on the back of a test report?

Common Types of Social Engineering Attacks

Some of the most common types of social engineering attacks include phishing and spear phishing, vishing, impersonation, pretexting, and physical vectors such as tailgating and baiting.

Let’s break these types down:

• Phishing is a type of scam whereby false emails are sent under the pretext of looking official. An employee may open these emails and click on malicious links or download software that can harvest security credentials or allow hackers access to systems.
• Spear phishing follows the same line as above, but is often more elaborate and highly personalized. These scams are even harder to spot, and may trick even the most security-savvy of employees.
• Vishing is voice phishing. It’s an attack via phone where a scammer will impersonate someone important or use confidence tricks to gain information from an employee.
• Impersonation, as explored, can occur across many different types of social engineering. This is simply where an attacker pretends to be another employee, a supervisor, or a legitimate business contact to gain information or access.
• Pretexting is, again, another technique that can fall under many types of social engineering. Pretexting scams involve creating stories or plausible scenarios to try and get sensitive information from targets.
• Tailgating is a physical form of social engineering that involves following an employee through a security door or access route after they have scanned in.
• Baiting is an attack vector that can be physical or digital. Here, an attacker convinces their target to accept an item or “reward” which in turn installs harmful software or allows them to access sensitive information.

All these attacks rely on human psychology and trust, making training and awareness crucial for effective defense.

How a Social Engineering Pen Test Works

A social engineering penetration test is a controlled exercise that evaluates how susceptible employees are to human-focused attacks. These tests typically follow several stages including scoping and planning, reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, scenario design and execution, monitoring and tracking responses, as well as reporting, remediation, and retesting.

Here’s how each of these steps break down during one of our typical practices:

Scoping & Planning

The first testing stage involves defining objectives and boundaries with the target, and gaining certain permissions to access data and to test employees. This will involve deciding upon specific threat vectors to follow, and to sign clear contracts with regard to how far testing will go (and, to agree that no actual harm will be carried out).

Reconnaissance & Intelligence Gathering

Recon is split into passive and active methods:

• Passive Reconnaissance: Collecting information without interacting with targets. Examples: public websites, social media profiles, corporate filings, press releases, and other open source intelligence. Passive recon is low-risk, non-disruptive, and builds the baseline for realistic scenarios.
• Active Reconnaissance: Direct interaction or probing that may alert the target. Examples: test phone calls, targeted queries, physical observation of facilities, or controlled probing of systems. Active recon yields richer detail but carries a higher chance of detection and must be performed within agreed boundaries.

Otherwise, they may simply use open-source intelligence gathering penetration testing tools and rely on public data to build clear profiles on who they aim to scam.

Scenario Design & Execution

Testers will also work hard to select victims who are deemed easier to trick than most (such as those who have left the company or who may have less knowledge than others on security measures). With this, they will design scenarios based around individual people and carry out controlled attacks, either by crafting phishing emails, for example, or calling them directly.

Monitoring & Tracking Responses

Throughout testing, the tester will carefully track how their targets respond, how far they get with specific scams, and if there is any correlation between who responds and the attacks used. They take this information to record in reports, and to ascertain how far to proceed with further action.

Reporting & Remediation / Retesting

At the end of a social engineering exercise, testers will report back to stakeholders with clear details on the attacks they carried out, who they targeted, and what they were able to achieve. With this in mind, their reports will also offer clear steps for remediation and retesting. Such remediation tips could, for example, include suggesting retraining for specific departments or employees.

Types of Social Engineering Penetration Testing

Much like there are different types of social engineering, there are different types of penetration testing associated, too. Common approaches include on-site, off-site, and hybrid testing.

On-site Testing

This approach involves physical interaction with employees within the organization’s facilities. Examples include authorized attempts to access restricted areas (such as following an employee through a security door) or other controlled in-person scenarios.

Off-site Testing

Off-site tests are fully remote and use common attack vectors such as email, phone (vishing), or SMS (smishing) to simulate phishing and other social engineering tactics.

Hybrid Testing

Hybrid tests combine both on-site and off-site methods. For example, an initial remote phishing attempt may be followed by a controlled in-person engagement to simulate multi-layered attacks and test employee vigilance.

At VikingCloud, social engineering penetration tests are customized to each client’s needs, designed to assess specific departments, teams, or overall organizational readiness while maintaining strict ethical standards.

Social Engineering Penetration Testing Best Practices

Some of the best practices for social engineering penetration tests include building ongoing awareness through training, using phishing simulations, implementing more stringent technical controls, and developing a strong incident response plan.

Let’s explore these points in more detail.

Training and Awareness

As a baseline, you can avoid failing social engineering penetration tests by establishing a conscious cybersecurity culture and building awareness of trends among your employees. One of the easiest ways to do this is to deliver targeted training and refreshers for staff across the whole organization, and offer top-up training to those who may fail in penetration tests.

Phishing Simulations

It’s also wise to adopt phishing simulations, where possible, to test how staff may respond to typical threats in the real world. You could use controlled phishing simulations to evaluate staff responses to email, vishing, and physical social engineering attempts. Simulations can be both announced and unannounced to provide realistic insights into organizational readiness.

Technical Controls

On the back of a poor test, consider re-establishing strong technical controls across your whole organization. For example, embrace multi-factor authentication (MFA), email filtering, and anomaly detection to help block potential bad actors from impersonating legitimate contacts.

Incident Response Planning

Above all, it’s vital to develop an incident response plan that accounts for the detection and eradication of social engineering threats. For example, you might set up a reporting channel for employees who feel they may have been targeted. They could also provide typical emails/messages they receive so that you can develop defense strategies against specific signs of social threats.

Conclusion

With social engineering on the rise and cyberattacks increasing in sophistication, there has never been a better time to protect your enterprise, data, and infrastructure against the threat of human manipulation.

While the core principle of manipulating people has remained consistent, the methods attackers use have evolved significantly, from phishing emails to sophisticated impersonation techniques. Fortunately, modern data, technology, and structured penetration testing make it possible to, proactively, mitigate these risks.

If you’re concerned about the effects social engineering may have on your enterprise and its data, be sure to contact VikingCloud today and learn more about how our penetration testing services can better prepare you for threat evolution in the years to come.