Social Engineering: An Eye-Opening Guide

 

Social engineering is the art of manipulating people so they give up confidential information. The types of information these criminals are seeking can vary, but when individuals are targeted the criminals are usually trying to trick you into giving them your passwords or bank information, or access your computer to secretly install malicious software–that will give them access to your passwords and bank information as well as giving them control over your computer.

Criminals use social engineering tactics because it is usually easier to exploit your natural inclination to trust than it is to discover ways to hack your software. For example, it is much easier to fool someone into giving you their password than it is for you to try hacking their password (unless the password is really weak).

What Does a Social Engineering Attack Look Like?

Phishing attacks are a subset of social engineering strategy that imitate a trusted source and concoct a seemingly logical scenario for handing over login credentials or other sensitive personal data. 

Email from a friend Or Email from any other trusted source

If a criminal manages to hack or socially engineer one person’s email password they have access to that person’s contact list and because most people use one password everywhere, they probably have access to that person’s social networking contacts as well.

Taking advantage of your trust and curiosity, these messages will:

• Contain a link that you just have to check out and because the link comes from a friend and you’re curious, you’ll trust the link and click it then be infected with malware so the criminal can take over your machine and collect your contacts info and deceive them just like you were deceived.
• Contain a download of pictures, music, movie, document, etc., that has malicious software embedded. If you download–which you are likely to do since you think it is from your friend–you become infected. Now, the criminal has access to your machine, email account, social network accounts and contacts, and the attack spreads to everyone you know.

Baiting scenarios

These social engineering schemes know that if you dangle something people want, many people will take the bait. These schemes are often found on Peer-to-Peer sites offering a download of something like a hot new movie, or music. But the schemes are also found on social networking sites, malicious websites you find through search results, and so on.

People who take the bait may be infected with malicious software that can generate any number of new exploits against themselves and their contacts, may lose their money without receiving their purchased item, and, if they were foolish enough to pay with a check, may find their bank account empty.

Don’t become a Victim

While phishing attacks are rampant, short-lived, and need only a few users to take the bait for a successful campaign, there are methods for protecting yourself. Most don’t require much more than simply paying attention to the details in front of you. Keep the following in mind to avoid being phished yourself.

Tips to Remember:

• Slow down. Spammers want you to act first and think later. If the message conveys a sense of urgency or uses high-pressure sales tactics be skeptical; never let their urgency influence your careful review.
• Research the facts. Be suspicious of any unsolicited messages. If the email looks like it is from a company you use, do your own research. Use a search engine to go to the real company’s site, or a phone directory to find their phone number.
• Don’t let a link be in control of where you land. Stay in control by finding the website yourself using a search engine to be sure you land where you intend to land. Hovering over links in email will show the actual URL at the bottom, but a good fake can still steer you wrong.
• Email hijacking is rampant. Hackers, spammers, and social engineers taking over control of people’s email accounts (and other communication accounts) has become rampant. Once they control an email account, they prey on the trust of the person’s contacts.
• Beware of any download. If you don’t know the sender personally and expect a file from them, downloading anything is a mistake.
• Foreign offers are fake. If you receive an email from a foreign lottery or sweepstakes, money from an unknown relative, or requests to transfer funds from a foreign country for a share of the money it is guaranteed to be a scam.

Ways to Protect Yourself:

• Delete any request for financial information or passwords. If you get asked to reply to a message with personal information, it’s a scam.
• Reject requests for help or offers of help. Legitimate companies and organizations do not contact you to provide help. If you did not specifically request assistance from the sender, consider any offer to ’help’ restore credit scores, refinance a home, answer your question, etc., it’s a scam.
• Set your spam filters to high. Every email program has spam filters. To find yours, look at your settings options, and set these to high–just remember to check your spam folder periodically to see if legitimate email has been accidentally trapped there.
• Secure your computing devices. Install anti-virus software, firewalls, email filters and keep these up-to-date. Set your operating system to automatically update, and if your smartphone doesn’t automatically update, manually update it whenever you receive a notice to do so.  Use an anti-phishing tool offered by your web browser.

 

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