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this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2026
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A genz hacker. In a world where "hacking" is writing prompts and calling IT help desks.
It always amazes me how much people shit talk social engineering, when it's been a power house for hackers since the beginning.
The human (or I guess AI now) element is always the weakest link
Tbf, some of the best hackers were social engineering their way into the backend just by calling up certain support numbers in the 80s
I refuse to call social engineers hackers, conmen is more fitting.
You can refuse to call them hackers, everyone is entitled to be wrong about something.
Kevin Mitnick was a prolific hacker who used social engineering regularly to infiltrate, and hackers still do today. Humans are a massive weak point in any org, that's why we have to take quarterly training not to be a moron and let someone into our network through doing something stupid.
Mitnick was also a hacker, but I never considered his social engineering feats as hacking themselves. They were definitely what let him accomplish his goals though and I consider those skills adjacent, just like lock picking. If you see someone picking a lock, I doubt your brain says "OMG a hacker!".
Hacking is making something work in an unconventional or unexpected way. Social engineers hack people in that way.
Defcon would disagree. I've watched so many presenters talk about all forms of penetration testing, many of which used social engineering and lockpicking as a way to create exploitable vulnerabilities in networks. Whether or not you care to call them hackers... It doesn't really matter, won't stop them from hacking.
The weakest link in cybersecurity are usually the users after all.
Real hackers social-engineered their way into high security systems decades before the first blue haired femboy nerd proudly announced "Btw i am usin Arch!"
Wait, calling IT Help Desks isn’t social engineering now?
It always is. Even if you're actually calling for help, you need to basically trick them into helping you these days.
Gen Z knows how to use Windows?
Sounds like the tagline for a really crap movie. How far we've fallen from two people on one keyboard.
Don't forget breaking out a second keyboard, but both people use one hand on each keyboard instead of one keyboard each!
I know, right. . . Now that's real hacking!