CAPEC-415: Pretexting via Phone
An adversary engages in pretexting behavior, assuming some sort of trusted role, and contacting the targeted individual or organization via phone to solicit information from target persons, or manipulate the target into performing an action that serves the adversary's interests. This is the most common social engineering attack. Some of the most commonly effective approaches are to impersonate a fellow employee, impersonate a computer technician or to target help desk personnel.
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Overview
CAPEC-415 (Pretexting via Phone) is a detailed-level attack pattern catalogued by MITRE in the Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC). It describes a recurring method attackers use to exploit software weaknesses.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about CAPEC-415.
- What is CAPEC-415?
- An adversary engages in pretexting behavior, assuming some sort of trusted role, and contacting the targeted individual or organization via phone to solicit information from target persons, or manipulate the target into performing an action that serves the adversary's interests. This is the most common social engineering attack. Some of the most commonly effective approaches are to impersonate a fellow employee, impersonate a computer technician or to target help desk personnel.
- How severe is CAPEC-415?
- MITRE rates CAPEC-415 as Low severity.
References
Attack-pattern data is sourced from the MITRE CAPEC catalog (v3.9). Weakness associations link to the corresponding CWE entries on RadicalNotion.AI.
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