Why social engineering is important

If you don’t want to be tricked by threat actors and social engineers into revealing your login credentials and hacking your account, then you must learn about social engineering attacks. However, by a twist of sheer bad luck, once the cyberthieves manage to trick you into divulging your email password, they can easily access your contact list and other important accounts. The problem is not that you don’t have a robust security solution; rather, it has to do with the fact that you sometimes trust people you shouldn’t, and you, inadvertently, end up giving them the tool they can use to harm you. Imagine living in a house with alarm systems, CCTVs, security dogs, or padlocks, but you open the door to a criminal who can attack you only because you mistook him a delivery guy.

Key facts about social engineering

• Social engineering schemes differ from one social engineer to the next;
• You don’t immediately get to know you are being hoodwinked
• Social engineering is an old trick that spans across different industries, and it’s both physical and digital;
• Most threat actors generally attack large enterprises and other SMEs, although no one is immune from a social engineering attack;
• Social engineering techniques are also employed by countries and states.

Types of social engineering attacks

The following are the types of social engineering with examples:

1. Phishing

To gain access to important information—such as login credentials or bank information—phishing is a very popular technique employed by cyber-attackers and threat actors. A number of people still fall prey to phishing despite its widespread occurrence. For instance, a threat actor pretends to be a reliable source through interactions meant to trick the target into opening text messages or emails. The phisher’s ultimate objective is to bait the victim into revealing their personal information. Phishing emails can be recognized by the fundamental tone of urgency.

2. Vishing

Except for a voice, vishing serves the same purpose as phishing. Unlike a phisher, a visher uses urgent voice calls, voice mails, or voice notes to persuade the target into trusting that they must act quickly to defend themselves against an arrest or other eventualities.

3. Baiting

This type of social engineering method involves the target victim getting trapped the ‘bait.’ The social engineer knows that humans are certainly influenced when you throw an apparently tempting offer, so they exploit this. For example, a wicked threat actor might deliberately place a USB stick branded as “Confidential” in a place where the victim can notice it. Nevertheless, unbeknown to the target the stick is infected with malware. The target may then take the ‘bait’ and attach it to a computer system out of inquisitiveness. As soon as this activity is carried out, the malware gets injected into the computer.

4. Pretexting

In pretexting, the cyber-criminal retrieves critical information through a series of astutely created lies. The swindle is typically introduced by an invader feigning to be in need of the user’s sensitive information in order to carry out a significant task. For example, the cybercriminal can send the victim an email that nominates them as the beneficiary of a will. Nevertheless, the victim is cheated into trusting that they need to reveal their personal information to hasten the inheritance process.

5. Quid Pro Quo

This attack occurs when threat actors ask for personal information from their target in exchange for recompence or something they wish. It’s often an “if you give me this, I’ll give you that” kind of trade.

The deal often appears too good to be true and it typically is because the threat actor is often the one who is the biggest beneficiary of such an exchange.