---
title: "What is Social engineering? Definition"
description: "Social engineering is manipulating people - rather than hacking systems - into breaking normal procedures, typically through authority, urgency,..."
url: https://realpayee.com/glossary/social-engineering
canonical: https://realpayee.com/glossary/social-engineering
date_published: 2026-10-05
date_modified: 2026-10-05
author: RealPayee
---

# Social engineering

> Social engineering is manipulating people - rather than hacking systems - into breaking normal procedures, typically through authority, urgency, secrecy or familiarity. Most business payment fraud, from fake vendor emails to deepfake executive calls, is social engineering.

_Published 2026-10-05 · Updated 2026-10-05 · By RealPayee_

## Related terms

- [Business email compromise (BEC)](https://realpayee.com/glossary/business-email-compromise): Business email compromise is fraud in which criminals use spoofed, lookalike or hijacked business email to trick employees into sending money or sensitive data.
- [CEO fraud](https://realpayee.com/glossary/ceo-fraud): CEO fraud is a scam in which a criminal impersonates a CEO, CFO or other executive to pressure an employee into making an urgent, confidential payment.
- [Social engineering fraud insurance coverage](https://realpayee.com/glossary/social-engineering-fraud-insurance): Social engineering fraud coverage is insurance - often an endorsement to a commercial crime policy, with its own sub-limit - for losses when an employee is deceived into sending money.

## Why it matters for finance teams

Most payment fraud reaches AP as a request that looks legitimate. Understanding social engineering helps your team spot it and apply the right control: verify bank-detail changes and large payment requests with the real person, out-of-band, before money moves. Our free [bank-change policy template](https://realpayee.com/templates/vendor-bank-change-policy) puts that into a written rule.

Full glossary: https://realpayee.com/glossary · All terms as JSON Lines: https://realpayee.com/feeds/glossary.jsonl

## Related

- [CEO fraud and deepfake executive calls: how finance teams stop them](https://realpayee.com/ceo-fraud) - How CEO fraud works - from spoofed emails to deepfake video calls - and the verification steps that stop fake payment requests. (markdown: https://realpayee.com/ceo-fraud.md)

---

Canonical HTML: https://realpayee.com/glossary/social-engineering · Site index: https://realpayee.com/llms.txt · Book a demo: https://realpayee.com/demo