Next time you see an unsolicited resume in your email, it’s worth scrutinizing before you just click on it. It could be a nasty new ransomware called Petya.
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Infradapt Blog
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Malware has traditionally targeted industries that are exceptionally profitable. For example, hackers like to target retailers for their wealth of financial credentials. One of the most profitable industries, entertainment, is also subject to similar torment, including Steam, the PC gamer’s most valuable tool for gaming binges.
Did you know that some of the most successful hackers actually know very little about computer coding? In many cases, a hacker simply tricking someone into handing over their personal information works out even better for them. This is a tactic known as social engineering, and the only way to defend against it is to stay one step ahead of the hacker’s devious plans.
What makes social engineering tactics so dangerous is that there are so many different ways that a hacker can fool their victims. These hackers know how to appeal to the wide range of human emotions in order to get someone so riled up, panicked, or excited that they’ll go ahead and fork over their personal information without considering if the source of the message is legit or not. For business owners, the worst thing about social engineering is that these tactics can bypass your expensive software security solutions, due to the fact that the nature of the scam tricks an employee into manually bypassing it. Therefore, you and your staff should know what social engineering tricks hackers have up their sleeves.
4 Social Engineering Tactics You MUST Be Mindful Of
Generally speaking, most social engineering tactics fall under the category of phishing scams. These are specialized scams where someone’s personal information is targeted, which can often be easily gleaned from a basic Internet and social media search. Note: a reason like social engineering is why it’s best practice to be extra careful regarding the nature of the personal information you post to the web.
Be sure to commit these four social engineering tactics to memory:
- Play on trusted relationships: There are people in your life who you’ve come to trust over the course of several positive interactions. If a hacker can pose as a person whom you trust, like a close friend or a family member, then they’ve got easy access to your personal information.
- A request for information: Using tactics similar to the above example, if a hacker can convince you that they’re a bank, insurance company, or any other large institution which holds your account information, then they’ll try to trick the user by requesting a confirmation of your sensitive information, like passwords. Remember, reputable institutions never request this kind of information via email. Also, you should be on the lookout for phone scammers that will try the same approach over the phone.
- Posing as one who has authority: Some people trust authority figures so much that they’ll do what they’re told without question. Overly trusting people like this can be susceptible to being conned by hackers posing as authority figures, like government agencies and even employers. One such trick that you may have seen in your own inbox is spam messages trying to get you to sign up for “jury duty.”
- A fake IT department: This one hits a little too close to home for us. Companies that are large enough where your employees aren’t familiar with who runs their IT may fall for an email posing as someone representing their IT department. This is why it’s vital that your staff knows, without a doubt, who’s running your business’s IT, no matter what size of company you operate.
These attacks don’t just come in through email; scammers might attempt to introduce themselves over the phone before they can infiltrate your network.
Having your staff be familiarized with these common tactics will go a long way in keeping your data safe, but there’s more you can do. Like understanding that any unsolicited request for sensitive information, whether it be by email or phone, is an automatic red flag. It’s also prudent to teach your workers to cross reference the contact information provided in the message with what you’ve got on file.
At the end of the day, a software security solution like a spam filter from Infradapt will still help in preventing spam messages from even hitting your inbox in the first place. To protect your company from every tactic in a hacker’s arsenal, call us today at 800.394.2301.
There’s a wicked string of malware on the Internet that locks users out of their browser and directs them to call a phone number. That phone number reaches hackers who have set up a subterfuge as an IT support company. If this happens to you, even if you are in the middle of something important, do not call the phone number.
Hackers are notorious for exploiting technology for their benefit, but users often forget that mobile devices are exploited just as often as desktops and workstations; perhaps more so, due to their higher exposure to wireless networks that may not be secure. One of the greatest threats to mobile devices is the botnet, which is designed to enslave a device and have it turn on its owner (and the entire Internet).
How a Botnet Works
What makes botnets so dangerous is the fact that you’re not dealing with a single threat; rather, you’re dealing with several computers or devices that have been infected and turned into bots, which are controlled remotely by hackers. As explained by CyberTrend, botnets are:
[...] a series of computers, or smartphones and tablets in the case of mobile bots, that have been infected with a self-replicating backdoor Trojan that lets cybercriminals force the network to perform unauthorized commands, en masse. Once infected with such malware, a computer or mobile device becomes a single node in the botnet, referred to as a zombie or bot. The strength of the botnet is in the numbers. Cybercriminals use a system known as a command-and-control computer to issue commands and distribute the malware.
In more basic terms, the botnet is the very definition of a zombie horde; it absorbs more devices by infecting them over time, eventually becoming a huge force to be reckoned with. The devices are then coerced into performing all sorts of functions, like spreading the malware to new systems, generating spam, collecting or stealing information, and so on. One of the more dangerous things that a huge botnet can do is perform a DDoS attack, which can overload servers with enough traffic to knock them offline. Immense downtime can lead to wasted time and expenses that can otherwise be avoided.
Why Mobile Devices?
While the desktop and workstation platforms can take advantage of comprehensive security solutions that are specifically designed to keep threats out, mobile device security often doesn’t work in the same way. Plus, when you consider the fact that many people forget that smartphones are viable hacking options, mobile devices can be considered at risk of being turned into botnets. With Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) being a popular office trend, malware, viruses, and spyware can be spread at an even greater rate than before.
What To Do
The most basic way to keep your devices from being turned into part of a botnet is to ensure that your security solutions are both comprehensive and up to date. Taking a proactive stance against online threats can help your systems stay away from botnet infections, and more importantly, your devices will avoid becoming pawns that only make the infection worse. Your mobile devices should be using some sort of security solution, and all apps used on the device should stay updated. Using the most recent versions of apps can minimize your business’s security risks.
Mobile botnets are growing in number, but the PC variant is much more common. You should be prepared to protect your business’s assets from hacking attacks of all kinds. A Unified Threat Management solution is the ideal solution to your network security needs. It can keep malware and viruses from accessing the network, clean up potential threats, put a halt to spam, and block malicious or time-wasting web content. To learn more, give us a call at 800.394.2301.