What are examples of social engineering attacks?
Table of Contents
- 1 What are examples of social engineering attacks?
- 2 How a person can become victim of social engineering?
- 3 Which of these behaviors should you do to protect yourself and your organization from social engineering attacks?
- 4 How would you know if a social engineer is trying to trick you?
- 5 Is social engineering ethical?
- 6 Is Phishing social engineering?
- 7 How can organizations reduce the chances of social engineering attacks?
- 8 What are some policies that you would recommend to the company to Minimise the risk of social engineering attacks?
4 Social Engineering Attack Examples (with Pictures!)
- Spear Phishing Emails, Calls or Texts. Phishing is a term used to describe cyber criminals who “fish” for information from unsuspecting users.
- Baiting.
- Quid Pro Quo.
- Tailgating or Piggybacking.
Commonly, social engineering involves email or other communication that invokes urgency, fear, or similar emotions in the victim, leading the victim to promptly reveal sensitive information, click a malicious link, or open a malicious file.
How do social engineers successfully manipulate people?
Social engineers manipulate human feelings, such as curiosity or fear, to carry out schemes and draw victims into their traps. Being alert can help you protect yourself against most social engineering attacks taking place in the digital realm.
Five Ways to Protect Yourself:
- Delete any request for personal information or passwords. Nobody should be contacting you for your personal information via email unsolicitedly.
- Reject requests for help or offers of help.
- Set your spam filters to high.
- Secure your devices.
- Always be mindful of risks.
Sending threatening or intimidating emails, phone calls and texts that appear to come from an authority figure such as a police officer, the tax department or a bank are other techniques social engineers will use to scare you into acting on their demands for personal information or money.
What is the best defense against social engineering?
Security awareness training Conducting, and continuously refreshing, security awareness among employees is the first line of defense against social engineering.
In ethical hacking, social engineering has become a popular (and very effective) strategy of testing how vulnerable an organization’s staff really is. When used in an ethical way, social engineering allows you to detect weaknesses to better address your staff-related security issues.
Phishing is a form of social engineering. Phishing attacks use email or malicious websites to solicit personal information by posing as a trustworthy organization.
How often does cybercrime happen?
Hackers attack people worldwide roughly every half a minute. This translates to a cybercrime being committed on an average of 2,244 times per day, according to internet security statistics. Smaller organizations (1–250 employees) have the highest targeted malicious email rate at 1 in 323.
Top 10 Ways to Prevent Social Engineering Attacks
- Multi-Factor Authentication.
- Continuously Monitor Critical System.
- Utilize Next-Gen cloud-based WAF.
- Verify Email Sender’s Identity.
- Identify your critical assets which attract criminals.
- Check for SSL Certificate.
- Penetration Testing.
- Check and Update your Security Patches.
10 Ways to Prevent Social Engineering Attacks
- Security Awareness Training.
- Phishing Simulations.
- Prevent Pre-Texting.
- Prevent Scam Emails Using Gateways.
- Put Good Processes in Place (BEC/CEO Fraud Prevention)
- Have a Good Social Media Policy on Privacy and Posting.
- Secure Mobile Devices.
- Set up Privileged Access and 2FA.