Social engineering

Social engineering encompasses fraud techniques that target humans: phishing, spear phishing, vishing and smishing, CEO fraud, pretexting, baiting, and now voice or video deepfakes. It exploits biases such as authority, urgency, or trust to pressure the victim into disclosing credentials, changing bank details, or authorizing a transfer. It is the primary lever for many wire transfer and onboarding frauds, which can be mitigated by automated identity and IBAN verification.