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.
ConfirmedFraudsters posing as RBS fraud-team staff talked Hamilton Academical FC's banking employee into moving nearly £1 million to fake accounts.
ConfirmedTo unmask a boardroom leaker, HP's leak investigators and their hired data brokers impersonated directors and journalists to trick phone carriers.
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.
ConfirmedIn the same January 12, 2010 blog post disclosing Operation Aurora, Google revealed that dozens of Gmail accounts belonging to human-rights activists.
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