My experience just this afternoon: An unknown person approached me in the hall of my office building and asked if I had a screwdriver. He said he'd just moved i

My experience just this afternoon: An unknown person approached me in the hall of my office building and asked if I had a screwdriver. He said he'd just moved in down the hall and had accidentally locked his keys and phone in when he went to the rest room. He wanted to remove the cover on the mail slot so he could reach in and open the door. Being aware of social engineering hacks and having just read this article I was slightly cautious as I'd never seen him around. I knew the stakes were pretty low but I quickly came up with what I thought was a good enough way to verify his story. Standing in front of the door, I asked for and dialed his cellphone number. It rang inside and I handed him the screwdriver. Once inside, he was able to positively confirm he should be there. Of course this is a pretty silly example, but also illustrates that it's often not that hard to counter social attacks.