This short chapter has discussed a very powerful skill used in social engineering to bring targets out and put them in a position from where they can be exploited. It has looked at how one can strike up a conversation with a total stranger and maintain it. Even more importantly, it has looked at how a social engineer can preload the target with some information so as to affect the target's response. Lastly, the chapter has looked into a number of tactics that can be employed in order to successfully perform elicitation. Just to mention a few, the chapter has looked at how intelligent questions, assumptive questions, and bracketing can be used to elicit a target to give out some information with accuracy. The stroking of egos and flattering of targets has also been discussed as ways to get a target to overshare some details that are seemingly sensitive. Lastly, alcohol and attentive ears have been discussed as great tactics to get people to confide sensitive information with others.

Elicitation brings out people from the confines of defined security zones and instigates them to share some details that they would otherwise avoid sharing with strangers. This chapter has looked at several tactics that are used to ensure that elicitation is carried out successfully and that targets are persuaded to share sensitive details with total strangers. The next chapter will be about pretexts. It will cover how social engineers are able to assume the faces of different people in order to carry out an attack. The chapter will go into detail on how a pretext is planned, how a social engineer transforms into a totally different person, and how the social engineer maintains that pretext during an attack.