Social Engineering is absolutely the lions share of how things get done. Remember: Never work the system if you can work the people running it.

This is true of hacking, yes, but also just navigating all the bullshit bureaucracy that surrounds modern life. For hackers, cracking good passwords is almost impossible (this is to say, it is possible but it takes… a very long time. Longer than they have.) So they rely on people having terrible password discipline- they’re using phishing schemes to get passwords and guess similar passwords at other places.

They’re also using social engineering to convince your cell phone company they’re you… at which point the cell phone CS rep becomes extremely helpful in bypassing any security that normally routes through your phone. (Like, say SMS 2fa. Or phone call 2fa,)