The Art of Deception (Mitnick, 2002)
loresecurityops culture
Kevin Mitnick's first book after prison: a collection of social-engineering stories, each dissected into the technique that made it work and the control that would have stopped it. The thesis is one line - the human is the vulnerability no patch reaches.
It turned social engineering from folklore into a teachable discipline with named moves: pretexting, authority, urgency, reciprocity, the helpful stranger. Security-awareness training as an industry essentially descends from this book, and its case studies are still the ones instructors reach for. Mitnick's later Ghost in the Wires tells the same life from the inside, as a chase story.
Also known as: mitnick book, art of deception, social engineering book