During a physical penetration test simulating a social engineering attack, a threat actor walks into...

CEH’s social engineering principles highlight psychological manipulation techniques such as authority, urgency, trust exploitation, and impersonation. In this scenario, the attacker leverages “perceived authority,” a powerful influence tactic where the social engineer poses as someone with legitimate power or sanctioned access—such as a technician, auditor, or vendor representative. CEH emphasizes that referencing real employee names, using technical terminology, and impersonating trusted third-party partners increases believability and reduces verification resistance. The receptionist’s acceptance of the attacker’s presence without verifying credentials matches classical authority-based exploitation. Leaked credentials, physical security logs, and network segmentation issues do not relate to human-layer social engineering. The situation clearly reflects the manipulation of trust and authority as described in CEH’s psychological attack vectors.