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What is social engineering
The term "social engineering" is used to describe a broad range of malicious activities carried out through interpersonal communications. It uses mind control to trick users into making security mistakes or disclosing private information.
How to work on social engineering attack
Attacks by Famous social engineering attacks have at least one stage. To gather crucial background information, such as potential attack locations and weak security protocols, a perpetrator first investigates the target of the expected casualty. At that point, the attacker makes an effort to win over the victim's trust before moving forward with actions that compromise security protocols, such as disclosing sensitive information or granting access to essential resources.
Social Engineering Attack Lifecycle
Social engineering is particularly dangerous because it depends more on human error than on bugs in software and operational frameworks. Real client errors are much harder to distinguish from malware-based interruptions because they are much less predictable.
Social engineering attack techniques
Anywhere there is a chance of human interaction, social engineering attacks can be conducted. Below is a list of the five most common types of cybersocial engineering attacks.
Social Engineering Attack Types
Baiting
Baiting attacks, as the name suggests, use a deceptive promise to arouse the curiosity or greed of a victim. They trick users into falling for a trap that steals their personal data or infects their computers with malware.
Malware is distributed using physical media in the most despised type of baiting. Attackers may, for instance, place the bait—typically malware-infected flash drives—in public places where potential victims are bound to see them (such as restrooms, elevators, or the parking lot of a targeted business). By way of a label that presents it as the company's payroll list, the bait has an authentic appearance.
Out of curiosity, the victims pick up the bait and put it into their home or office computer, which causes the system to automatically download malware.
Baiting con games do not always have to take place in real life. Online baiting takes the form of enticing advertisements that direct users to malicious websites or prod them to download malware-laden software.
Social engineering prevention guide
Scareware
When using scareware, victims are repeatedly subjected to fictitious threats and false alarms. Users are tricked into believing their system is infected with malware, leading them to install software that is either malware itself or has no real benefit (aside from to the perpetrator). The terms deception software, fraudware, and rogue scanner software are also used to describe scareware.
A typical scareware example is the legitimate-appearing popup banners that show up in your browser while you're browsing the web and say things like, "Your computer may be infected with harmful spyware programmes." Either it offers to install the malicious tool for you or it sends you to a malicious website where your computer gets infected.
Additionally, spam emails that issue false alerts or urge recipients to purchase useless or harmful services are a common way for scareware to spread.
Pretexting
Here, an attacker gathers information by telling several deftly crafted lies. The perpetrator frequently starts the con by pretending to need private information from the victim in order to complete a critical task.
By pretending to be coworkers, police, bank and tax officials, or other people with right-to-know authority, the attacker typically begins by building trust with their victim. In order to gather crucial personal information about the victim, the pretexter poses questions that are ostensibly necessary to verify the victim's identity.
This scam is used to obtain all kinds of important data and records, including social security numbers, individual addresses and phone numbers, call logs, dates of staff vacation, bank information, and even security details pertaining to a physical plant.
Phishing
Phishing scams are email and text message campaigns that are among the most common types of social engineering attacks. They are designed to make recipients feel rushed, curious, or scared. After that, it asks them to reveal personal information, click on links to malicious websites, or open malware-infected attachments.
An example would be an email warning users of an online service that they have violated a policy and need to take immediate action, like changing their passwords. It asks the unwary user to enter their current login information and a new password and contains a link to a malicious website that almost exactly replicates its legitimate counterpart. Upon submitting the form, the information is sent to the attacker.
Given that phishing campaigns send nearly identical or identical messages to all users, mail servers with access to threat sharing platforms find and block them much more quickly.
Spear phishing
In this more focused variation of the phishing scam, the attacker picks particular people or companies to target. Then, in order to make their attack less obvious, they modify their messages based on the traits, positions held, and contacts of their victims. Spear phishing is much more difficult to pull off and can take weeks or even months to complete. If done expertly, they're much more difficult to detect and have higher success rates.
In a spear phishing scenario, an attacker may send an email to one or more employees while posing as an organization's IT consultant. The recipient will believe the message is genuine because it is written and signed exactly as the consultant would normally do. The message requests that recipients update their passwords and includes a link to a malicious page where the attacker can now capture their login information.
Social engineering prevention
To carry out their plans and lure victims into their traps, social engineers manipulate human emotions like curiosity and fear. Be cautious as a result whenever you receive a worrying email, are drawn to an offer on a website, or come across errant digital media lying around. Being vigilant can help you defend yourself from the majority of social engineering attacks that occur online.
The following advice can also increase your awareness of social engineering scams.
- Never open emails or attachments from unknown sources. You don't have to respond to an email if you don't know the sender. Cross-check and confirm the information from other sources, such as the phone or a service provider's website, even if you do know them and have doubts about what they are saying. It's important to keep in mind that email addresses are frequently spoofs, so it's possible that an email appearing to come from a reliable source was actually sent by an attacker.
- Use multifactor authentication – User credentials are among the most valuable pieces of data that attackers look for. In the event that the system is compromised, your account will be protected if you use multifactor authentication. Imperva Login Protect is a 2FA solution that is simple to set up and can improve account security for your applications.
- Be wary of alluring offers. If an offer appears to be too good to be true, it most likely is. Think it over carefully. You can quickly tell if you're dealing with a legitimate offer or a trap by conducting a search on the subject.
- Updating your antivirus and antimalware software is essential. Ensure that automatic updates are enabled, or develop a routine of downloading the most recent signatures first thing every day. Scan your system for potential infections and periodically verify that the updates have been installed.
