One of the most effective primary countermeasures for social engineering is creating awareness through employee training on how to identify some of the schemes used in social engineering. Through this awareness, they will also learn how to respond accordingly. These countermeasures include training employees on demanding proof of identity.
What is Social engineering?
The term Social Engineering is used to define the act of coaxing potential victims into giving out sensitive information that could be crucial through technology. This manipulation causes people to make security blunders that may cause them to end up disclosing confidential and delicate data to unwanted persons. This happens in one or many different steps. First, the attacker examines the victim and assembles crucial data about the victim. This is likely to be the weak entry point needed to launch the attack. After that, the perpetrator preys on the victim’s trust and offers provocations for activities that disrupt security protocols, like revealing delicate data or giving away important information. Social engineering is usually done over the internet, hence it needs to access a computer grid or network. The attacker always uses a software weakness to make his way into the victim’s computer or any electronic gadget. A social engineer, however, may pose as a technical provision person and trick a user into disclosing their login passcodes. The attackers always try to play on the victim’s wish to assist a coworker and possibly act before thinking.
Social engineering attack techniques?
Social engineering attacks come in different forms. One is the baiting attack, where a hacker uses a dishonest promise to tamper with victims’ voracity. Here, hackers bait operatives into traps and steal their private information or infect their system with malware. Secondly, there is scareware, which is commonly found on the internet, where an operative is blasted with a wrongful alarm that their system is infected. When they click on the link, their computer gets infected with the virus. This happens through pop-ups on the computer. There is also pretexting, where attackers attain data via a sequence of cunning, constructed lies. The perpetrators act like they need sensitive data from a user to accomplish a perilous task. They gain the trust of their victims by impersonating their colleagues. Phishing, on the other hand, is another common social engineering attack strategy. Here emails are sent to users asking them to change their password with an illegitimate website and through it, one gets access to one’s private data. There is also spear-phishing, where an attacker may impersonate an organization’s IT consultant who sends emails deceiving victims into giving out their credentials.
How to counter social engineering?
To protect yourself from social engineering attacks, one has to be alert. Additionally, the following guidelines may be used to increase watchfulness in regard to being hacked. Never open attachments and emails from distrustful sources. If the sender is not legitimate or is unknown, don’t reply to the email. If you know them but you are doubtful about the message content, you may need to validate and approve the news from further sources. One may call their service provider to inquire about the message. One should always remember that emails can be hoaxed at any time and may actually have originated from the attackers. It’s advisable to use double verification to ensure your account is not compromised. Imperva Login Protect has 2FA keys that can boost account safety for your claims. One should be cautious of attractive bids on the internet. If it’s very captivating, put your mind to it first as it may be a trick. Searching for the contents of the email over the internet is one way to avoid this trap. Also, keep your antivirus updated with automatic updates and be sure that the updates are functional.
