The Power of Communication Models

Communication modeling is a powerful tool that is a must-have skill for every social engineer. The hardest part about communication modeling is to ensure your information-gathering sessions are solid.

In both of the earlier scenarios, not having enough a good enough plan and model will lead to failure. A good way to practice communication modeling is to write out a model for manipulating people you know well—a husband, wife, parent, child, boss, or friend—to do something you want, to take some action you desire.

Set a goal, nothing malicious, such as getting someone to agree to a different vacation spot or a to go to a restaurant you love and your partner hates, or to allow you to spend some money on something you normally wouldn’t ask for. Whatever it is you come up with, write out the five communication components and then see how well the communication goes when you have a written plan. You will find that with your goals clearly defined, you can better test your social engineering communication methods, and be able to achieve your goals more easily. List the following five points and fill them out one by one, connecting the dots as you go along.

• Source
• Message
• Channel
• Receivers
• Feedback

Communication modeling yields very valuable information and without it, most communication will not be successful for a social engineer.

As previously mentioned, information gathering is the crux of every social engineering gig, but if you become proficient at information gathering and you are able to gather amazing amounts of data but don’t know how to use it, it is a waste.

Learn to become a master at information gathering and then practice putting that into action with communication modeling. This is just the start, but it can literally change the way you deal with people both as a social engineer and in everyday contexts. Yet so much more goes into developing a solid message in the communication model.

One key aspect of learning how to communicate, how to manipulate, and how to be a social engineer is learning how to use questions discuss in next tutorial