noun

• 1A person who attempts to manage social change and regulate the development of a society by means of centralized planning.

  ‘the social engineers have decided this is the way they want our community to grow up’

  More example sentences

  • ‘He has established a research trajectory for young scholars and social engineers that marks the beginning of a real and enduring scientific revolution.’
  • ‘Sheila is is a social engineer with an intuitive capacity to bring people together who would have otherwise never crossed paths.’
  • ‘Rail transit was promoted by social engineers who wanted to reform American lifestyles by reducing the amount of driving people did.’
  • ‘Morant partnered with the quintessential social engineer Robert Campbell in converting the numerous inner-city communities of Kingston.’
  • ‘They wanted to hear that clever social engineers could fix the world's problems and obviate the need for sacrifices in the future.’
  • ‘As ethical social engineers, our job is to test organizational security by seeing if our population will engage in risky behaviors.’
  • ‘The 18th-century social engineer Jeremy Bentham made plans for a prison built in a way that made it easy for convicts to be seen, but for convicts to have no way of knowing if they're being seen or not.’
  • ‘To the political and social engineers of what has come to be known as ‘urban planning’, the distinction between the city and the countryside has become a major preoccupation.’
  • ‘He has stood tall among his peers as a sagacious politician who has deepened democracy, a social engineer who has empowered thousands of his constituents through astutely managed programs.’
  • ‘Beyond that she was a brilliant litigator, I want people to recognize that she was one of the first true social engineers of our time, someone who actually changed the social landscape.’

• 2A person who uses deception to manipulate individuals into divulging confidential or personal information that may be used for fraudulent purposes.

  ‘social engineers take advantage of people's desire to be helpful’

  More example sentences

  • ‘it appears that the social engineer targeted specific customers of the bank’
  • ‘As a social engineer, the key is to create an environment in which your target feels as if they are choosing to help you.’
  • ‘Social engineers and online scammers used passengers' boarding passes to try and phish for information.’
  • ‘Let's not think like the consumer that is meant to use this tool and instead, think like the malicious user or the social engineer.’
  • ‘Social engineers are employed by competitors to steal trade secrets and to lead companies into bankruptcy.’
  • ‘A social engineer can craft a very specific and personal attack tailored just for you.’
  • ‘Remember, a social engineer can be very convincing and has likely done his or her research on their assumed identity.’
  • ‘He discovered that a social engineer—a hacker—was pretending to be him in order to gain access to critical account information.’
  • ‘Hasty users can fall prey to such false people like phishers and social engineers, resulting in identity theft and financial loss.’
  • ‘The social engineer presents him or herself as someone other than who he or she really is in order to get information or drive a certain course of action.’
  • ‘An advanced social engineer can take advantage of weak physical security policies an organization has put in place.’