Documented social engineering incidents targeting the media & entertainment sector, sourced and fact-checked.
A blogger paid $89.95 to an online data broker (CellTolls.com) to buy retired Gen. Wesley Clark's cell-phone call log obtained via carrier pretexting.
ConfirmedFraudsters built a fake WhatsApp profile of WPP CEO Mark Read and staged a Microsoft Teams call using an AI voice clone and repurposed YouTube footage.
ConfirmedNorth Korean operators spear-phished Sony Pictures staff with fake Apple ID "verify your account" emails, harvested reused credentials.
ConfirmedChinese state-linked hackers used spear-phishing links and an unpatched Internet Explorer zero-day to breach Google, Adobe.
ConfirmedFraudsters spoofing the French CEO's "personal" email talked Pathé's Dutch management into wiring €19.2M for a fake secret Dubai acquisition.
ConfirmedTo unmask a boardroom leaker, HP's leak investigators and their hired data brokers impersonated directors and journalists to trick phone carriers.
ConfirmedFraudsters posing as RBS fraud-team staff talked Hamilton Academical FC's banking employee into moving nearly £1 million to fake accounts.
ConfirmedA scammer posing as GCI's CFO emailed payroll and, after the employee's initial pushback, persuaded them to hand over 2015 W-2s for every GCI.
ConfirmedDow Chemical and Sasol paid PR firms who subcontracted a private intelligence firm to run over 120 dumpster-diving raids on Greenpeace's DC offices.
ConfirmedHackers bought a $10 stolen Slack session cookie, used it to reach EA's internal Slack.
ConfirmedToronto podcast-analytics company CoHost spent two months and seven interview rounds with a candidate later revealed as an AI-fabricated persona whose.
Social Engineering Examples