Adversaries may create and cultivate social media accounts that can be used during targeting. Adversaries can create social media accounts that can be used to build a persona to further operations. Persona development consists of the development of public information, presence, history and appropriate affiliations.(Citation: NEWSCASTER2014)(Citation: BlackHatRobinSage)

For operations incorporating social engineering, the utilization of a persona on social media may be important. These personas may be fictitious or impersonate real people. The persona may exist on a single social media site or across multiple sites (ex: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.). Establishing a persona on social media may require development of additional documentation to make them seem real. This could include filling out profile information, developing social networks, or incorporating photos.

Once a persona has been developed an adversary can use it to create connections to targets of interest. These connections may be direct or may include trying to connect through others.(Citation: NEWSCASTER2014)(Citation: BlackHatRobinSage) These accounts may be leveraged during other phases of the adversary lifecycle, such as during Initial Access (ex: [Spearphishing via Service](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1566/003)).