Social engineering is the psychological manipulation used to get others to do things or reveal private information. Between 70% and 90% of data breaches involve social engineering. Social engineering is currently one of the largest cybersecurity dangers facing both small and large enterprises.
These “human hacking” techniques are commonly used in cybercrime to trick unwary users into disclosing information, dispersing malware infections or granting access to restricted systems. Attacks might take place offline, online or through other encounters. Social engineering scams are designed around how individuals think and behave.
Attacks by social engineers may involve one or more steps. To prepare for an attack, an attacker first looks into the target in order to learn background details like probable points of exploitation and poor security measures. The attacker makes an effort to win over the victim’s trust and offer incentives for later security-breaching activities, such as disclosing confidential information or allowing access to internal systems.
In March 2019, The United States Department of Justice published a release stating that Luthuanian National, Evaldas Rimasauskas, cheated both Google and Facebook out of over $100 million by sending phishing emails to specific employees at both of these large companies. Rimasauskas set up a fake company, pretending to be a computer manufacturer that worked with Google and Facebook. Between 2013 and 2015, Rimaskauskas invoiced them for goods and services that the manufacturer had provided but directed them to deposit money into his fraudulent accounts.
Phishing is the most common type of social engineering attack and is meant to lure the victim into voluntarily disclosing sensitive information. This is accomplished by relying on a certain story or image to pass for the real thing. Phishing is most frequently perpetrated via malicious email attachments, often disguised as .PDF files or Word files.
Ransomware prevents a user or business from accessing files on a computer and requires payment in order to regain access. Cyberattackers put businesses in a situation where paying the ransom is the quickest and least expensive option to recover access to their assets. The cybercriminal encrypts the files and provides the decryption key in exchange for payment.
Password spraying is when an attacker uses common passwords to attempt to access several accounts on one domain. Using a list of common weak passwords, such as 123456 or password1, an attacker can potentially access hundreds of accounts in one attack.
Smishing occurs when an attacker sends a phony SMS message to your mobile phone number. These messages frequently contain offers for free goods or a time-critical alert involving banking or other sensitive information. Smishing is especially risky for people who are unfamiliar with fundamental cybersecurity concepts since the SMS messages are written in a way that makes them seem credible. To sell the story, some smishing texts even contain ambiguous personal information.
Attacks on the supply chain are frequently disregarded cyberattacks, but given enough time, they are capable of wreaking havoc. Supply chain attacks are more challenging to identify and stop if your vendors aren’t adhering to tight cybersecurity standards and employing the best tools since they target vendors and suppliers rather than a single organization directly.
Over two-thirds of internet users reuse their passwords, which makes credential stuffing very successful. Over the course of a few minutes or many hours, cybercriminals insert the stolen credentials into tens of thousands of websites, compromising everything from social networking accounts to secret corporate software and beyond.
A hack known as a Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attack occurs when a cybercriminal intercepts data being transferred between two organizations or individuals. The goal of the interception is to either steal, listen in on or manipulate the data with a bad intention, like extortion.
Malicious software, sometimes known as malware, can enter a device through an access point and download keyloggers. Infected software, emails, files or cloud-based programs can all serve as entry points. The keylogger is placed on the victim’s device and records each keystroke in order to gather sensitive information such as login passwords.
The number of cyber incidents thought to be the result of social engineering has reportedly increased. This tactic entails approaching a person, either online or in person, and coercing them into divulging personal information that can be used to access a computer network or assume someone else’s identity. These scams can be as audacious as deceiving you into providing a password or as innocent-seeming as inquiring what software you use or who is in charge of maintaining your computer network.
The perpetrators may assume the identities of employees, maintenance personnel, IT personnel or other outsiders with an apparent need to know such information. Access to high-level systems should be tightly restricted and monitored using Privileged Access Management (PAM) controls such as password vaults, session logging and tracking, Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) and automated provisioning and de-provisioning.
While protecting privileged accounts is important, businesses also need to take care of the rest of their employees. Cybercriminals frequently circumvent PAM controls by breaching lower-level accounts and then employing privilege escalation techniques to access resources at a higher level. Organizations should make sure that all staff members are adhering to excellent password hygiene since weak passwords are to blame for nearly all successful data breaches. For maximum protection, consider the following:
There are many ways to stay protected against cyberattacks, but one of the best is by using a password management platform like Keeper. See how we can protect you by signing up for a free trial of our personal platform or business platform.
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