What is Social Engineering?

Social engineering is the art of hacking people rather than machines. Instead of breaking code, attackers exploit human psychology, building false trust, creating urgency, impersonating authority, or triggering fear, to get you to hand over secrets, send funds, or approve malicious transactions. It underlies phishing, impersonation, and most crypto scams.

This matters because your wallet’s technical security is irrelevant if someone talks you into compromising it yourself. The human is often the weakest link.

Example: an attacker posing as urgent “security support” pressures you to act fast to “protect your account”, rushing you into entering your seed phrase before you can think clearly.

Safety note: the strongest defence is to slow down. Scammers manufacture urgency precisely to bypass your judgement. Independently verify any unexpected request through official channels, never share your seed phrase or 2FA codes, and be suspicious of anyone who contacts you first offering help or warning of danger. Real emergencies still allow time to check. Distrust pressure, and treat urgency itself as a warning sign. Related terms include phishing, impersonation scam, recovery scam, and pig butchering.