Arming Your Employees Against the Future of Social Engineering

The business world's increasing reliance on information technology, combined with the rapid pace of new developments, creattes more opportunities for malicious actors to exploit vulnerabilities.

One emerging concern for businesses is social engineering, where individual employees are deceived into divulging confidential or personal information that can compromise the security of the entire organisation with potentially serious legal, financial, and reputational ramifications.

Social engineering methods prey on human trust and gullibility, frequently targeting individuals through email or social media platforms, which is why it's critical that businesses arm their employees against the evolving nature of cyber threats with heightened awareness and ongoing education.

What Is Social Engineering

Social engineering in cybersecurity typically occurs through psychological manipulation and IT-based phishing attacks. In psychological manipulation, attackers might impersonate someone trustworthy to lure targets to malicious websites that infect corporate networks. Phishing attacks often aim to acquire banking details, resulting in financial theft.

Social engineering attacks employ various tactics, some better known than others, so ensuring your employees are aware of all of them is one of the best ways to help protect them and safeguard your business.

Pretexting is when the con artist gains a victim's trust, typically by creating a backstory that makes them sound trustworthy. It's often used at an early stage of more complex social engineering attacks. However, it can also be as simple as providing a false justification for asking them to do something, for example, impersonating IT Support and asking for a password.

Baiting encourages the victim by using a lure such as a USB flash drive infected with a key logger (a form of malware that keeps track of and records keystrokes as a person types) left on a desk.

Quid pro quo involves asking the victim to give a password in return for financial gain.

Tailgating is where a person follows someone into a sensitive area, using a device to copy the identity of a radio frequency ID pass.

Water-holing is where the hacker takes advantage of trusted websites people regularly visit.

Phishing involves trying to acquire usernames, passwords, and credit card information by masquerading as a trustworthy organisation through bulk email, which tries to avoid an IT system's spam filters.

Spear phishing is a focused attack via email on a particular person with the goal to penetrate the organisation's defences.

Honey trapping is using a trick to encourage men to interact with a fictional female online.

Scareware or rogue security software is a form of malware that encourages the user to pay for the fake or simulated removal of malware.

Whaling is a type of phishing attack that exploits the influence of senior executives over lower-level roles, such as CEOs over financial executives or assistants.

Pharming is where individuals are redirected to a malicious site that impersonates a valid site by exploiting system vulnerabilities that match domain names with IP addresses.

Vishing or voice phishing is an attack that uses the phone. Often the person receives a recorded message telling them their bank account has been compromised. The victim is then prompted to enter their details on their phone's keypad, giving the perpetrator access to their accounts.

Teach Employees How to Avoid Exploitation

To combat social engineering, companies must train their employees to recognise psychological triggers and other warning signs. Encourage healthy skepticism that leads staff to err on the side of caution and check with a colleague or supervisor when they encounter anything thatls slightly suspicious, rather than acting out of haste or fear.

Some of the key security habits that employers should champion include:

• Beware of unsolicited communications.
• Meticulously verify email sources.
• Check for spelling or grammar mistakes in emails, names, and domain names, and if in doubt confirm the sender's identity.
• Never open suspicious attachments.
• Sensitive information should only be shared after thorough verification.
• Check website security before submitting information, even if it seems legitimate.
• Pay particular attention to URLs and sites that look genuine, but web addresses are subtly different from the legitimate site they imitate.

As humans are the target, make sure to engage with employees to:

• Build awareness and a positive security culture.
• Test the effectiveness of guidance and training.
• Reinforce technological cyber security measures.

Organisations should also establish a robust cyber threat strategy, which includes evaluating the effectiveness of security protocols and enhancing technological cybersecurity measures.

Our highly trained team of qualified and experienced risk consultants work with clients across the UK to improve their understanding of their risk exposure and develop bespoke programmes that are developed to meet each client's individual needs and requirements.

Contact our highly trained team today to discuss how we can help you build a robust organisational defence against cyber threats.