Pretexting: Fact or Fiction?
Among the wide range of hacking techniques known collectively as social engineering, pretexting is a tactic that hinges on telling a compelling (and, spoiler alert, fake!) story.
With pretexting, hackers attempt to deceive their targets by establishing a false sense of trust. The hacker uses a fabricated story, or pretext, to get you to download malware, send money, or share sensitive information, to name a few examples. As you can imagine, this is a very risky game with serious ramifications if the hacker is successful.
To help you stay safe from a possible pretexting attack, let's take a look at some of the different ways you might be targeted -- and how you can thwart an attempt to coax you into believing a bogus story.
Source Fool.com