Social Engineering Special - Provocation, Contempt, Hate

Negative Manipulation 02 - looking at ways to weaponize provocation and how to create hate.

The Art of Provocation

Overview - Key Tactics

Highlight Injustices (Real or Perceived):

People rally against perceived wrongs. By amplifying or even fabricating injustices, you can provoke strong reactions. This taps into the human instinct for fairness and can quickly escalate emotions.

Question Loyalties:

Imply or directly accuse someone of disloyalty to a group, cause, or belief system. This creates an “us vs. them” mentality, stirring up defensive or aggressive behaviors as people rush to prove their allegiance.

Misrepresent Intentions:

Similar to the Bob scenario (see below: Suggesting Opposite Motives), but on steroids. Twist someone’s words or actions to suggest they have harmful, hidden motives: “That guy is dangerous!” This breeds mistrust and can turn neutral parties against each other.

Challenge Identities:

Attack or undermine someone’s sense of self or belonging. This can be particularly effective in diverse settings where identity is closely tied to beliefs or social groups. It’s a quick way to provoke defensiveness or aggression.

Emotional Hijacking:

Use loaded language, images, or situations that you know will trigger an emotional response. This bypasses rational thinking and leads to impulsive reactions. It’s like knowing someone’s emotional “code” and inputting commands directly.

Create Uncertainty:

People crave stability. Introduce doubt or uncertainty about the future, a situation, or a person’s intentions, and watch the anxiety levels rise. This often provokes a scramble for safety, real or imagined.

Flaunt Norm Violations:

Deliberately breaking social norms or taboos shocks people. This violation of expectations can provoke outrage, disgust, or fascination, but it always gets a reaction.

Use Scapegoats:

When things go wrong, having someone to blame can unify a group in shared contempt or hatred. This age-old tactic redirects negative emotions away from oneself or one’s group, often leading to persecution of the scapegoat.

The Endgame

The goal of provocation isn’t just to stir up emotions for the sake of it. It’s about directing those emotions towards a specific end, whether that’s rallying people to a cause, discrediting an opponent, or simply creating chaos that can be exploited.

Example Scenario: Provocation

In the heart of a bustling startup, where the pace is relentless and the stakes are high, two employees find themselves unwitting pawns in a game of psychological warfare.

The Arrival of Alex

Alex, a recent hire with an unassuming demeanor, quickly notices the tight-knit camaraderie among the development team. Yet, beneath Alex’s quiet exterior lies a strategic mind, intent on climbing the corporate ladder by any means necessary.

The Setup

Alex learns that Jordan, a respected but somewhat aloof developer, has been working on a potentially groundbreaking project. Sensing an opportunity, Alex begins a subtle campaign of provocation.

The Spark

It starts innocuously enough. Alex casually mentions to a few team members that Jordan seems to be keeping project details unusually close to the chest, suggesting perhaps there’s something to hide. “Just something I’ve noticed,” Alex adds, planting the seed of doubt.

The Escalation

Over the next few weeks, Alex intensifies the efforts. Emails “accidentally” forwarded contain out-of-context snippets of conversations, painting Jordan as dismissive of colleagues’ input. Small, seemingly forgettable comments made in passing leave lingering impressions of Jordan’s supposed arrogance and secrecy.

The Turning Point

The situation reaches a boiling point when Alex “confides” in a team member that Jordan plans to take full credit for the collaborative project, hinting at having overheard a conversation with management. The rumor spreads like wildfire, fueled by the bits of “evidence” Alex has carefully disseminated over time.

The Fallout

Trust erodes, and the once cohesive team finds itself divided. Productivity suffers as suspicion overshadows collaboration. Jordan is blindsided by accusations, and the project stalls amidst the turmoil. Alex watches from the sidelines, a silent instigator of chaos, having successfully maneuvered into a position of increased influence and visibility amidst the distraction.

More Provocation Examples

Felix

Mr. Styrofoam doesn’t want Felix Mercander to join his group. He provoces him in anticipation that Felix would freak out or do something stupid. It works, not exactly as planed, but good enough. Now all other members of the group don’t want Felix to join.

Felix receives no support because society around him is mostly naive and misguided, thinking Felix’ would make up the provocation. Instead, they believe Mr. Styrofoam, cause he’s got a high reputation. That why, others now also start poking on Felix, cause “maybe he is a bit psycho, as Mr. Styrofoam suggested?”

Felix not only loses access to the new group, but also has to retreat without any option to defend himself or to fight back. He gets lost in a downward spiral of depression and self-blame, has a long-term reputation damage and never fully recovers. Mr. Styrofoam won’t need to fear any retribution.

Emerging pattern

Today we see this common pattern re-emerge in true Cybercrime cases very often: Attackers not only think, if they’re bold enough, they’ll get what they want. Tragically it’s very often the case, that they get away with it. Here’s another example for such a situation:

A Social Engineer calls the Doctor’s Office of Mr. & Ms. Panic Attack to get medical background information. The target doesn’t hand out the info, cause they’re trained in patient privacy. But, the office doesn’t inform the police about the attack, cause they’re under the impression, the initial call (the attack) was made by an undercover police officer. That why, they also don’t inform the patient about the attack. The attacker roams free, once again.

Lately, even Ransomware Statistics seem to be impacted by the issue of non-reporting - we’ll soon publish details on this.

How To Create Hate

using contempt. In this part, we’ll look at some practical ways, how Hate is created artifically.

Let’s assume you’re sitting in your chair right now, chill, bored. We want to ask you to hate something on your desk - whatever there is, your mouse, controller, remote controll, smartphone and you’re thinking: “Look man, I’m not hatin on any of theesseee. I like ma stuff bro!”

What if we told you, one of the items would be full of magots, cause before it was sold to you, someone dropped it into a… toilet. Not only that. The previous owner was an offender - someone who couldn’t keep his hands, where they belong. He touched everyone (including himself) & everything. Disgusting. Now try again. Does it work now, can you hate the item?

Using disgust and contempt to create hate is nothing new. The technique was used by countless “Dark Past” organisations, religions, sekts, institutions.

Suggesting Opposite Motives

We already mentioned Good Guy Bob who was fired for defending honest marketing practises in a previous article about Social Engineering. Let’s take it a step further, cause nobody in the company wants anyone else to believe Bob.

The most simple approach is to tell, Bob had opposite motives: No, he wasn’t fired for supporting honest marketing, he tried to use that superficial claim to remove his colleague from project management. Because, Bob is greedy. He already had a good salary, but he thought he could become the Team Leader, that would’ve meant a lot more money and a far better career. Bob is a shady guy, some even say he works as an Undercover for those State Spies. Oh Bob, what were you thinking?

We caught Bob trying to pray on innocent Students, you know, sexually. What else did you expect? And we’re sure, he’s taking drugs. Several times Bob showed that you can’t believe a word he says, he’s mentally unstable - schizophrenic. Don’t trust Bob!

Conclusion

You may think, these tactics are unrealistic and don’t work in real life. Oh boy, you’re wrong. The ingenuity of Game of Thrones was, it reminded us all of reality - just less aggressive and with a sense of humor.

Author’s Comment

Today is a special day for me. But it’s a sad day, like most days before were sad days.

All I could keep and all I can pass on is my belief in the right choices, peaceful coexistance, appreciation and love. You gave me purpose.

General Disclaimer on Social Engineering

With all our articles about Psychological Manipulation we aim to help victims of such tactics. These days, Bad Actors use these techniques and tactics, outside of a legal context like Redteaming or Pentesting, for their own purposes. Thereby attackers are often crossing ethical borders, for reasons like Fraud, Blackmailing or just to put people under pressure, leaving their victims without resolution.

We provide detailed analysis of these techniques in hopes to create awareness, to help people understand what maybe has happened to them and to protect them against Social Engineering attacks.