Cybercriminals are increasingly targeting employees with sophisticated social engineering attacks in an attempt to fool them into disclosing confidential company information and sending money.
Comprehensive electronic monitoring of a business and its personnel is the first step in the assault chain. Cybercriminals obtain information using more cunning methods like spymail in addition to publicly accessible sources like social media, company blogs, and websites. They then seek to steal money, take down company networks, steal important data, and even hold businesses, hostage, by using the information they have gathered to craft targeted outreach to employees through emails or even phone calls. The legal, healthcare, and government sectors are the most vulnerable due to the sensitive data they hold that might be exploited for identity theft, insider trading, blackmail, and other crimes.
Fortunately, there are some actions that companies may take to safeguard themselves and their staff from this successful and growing danger. My main suggestions for avoiding social engineering attacks are as follows:
Draw awareness to socially and publicly shared information.
The first information that attackers obtain about a company and its personnel comes from easily accessible websites. Without the use of sophisticated technological “hacking” techniques, an astounding amount of information about our firms and people can be found on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, company websites and blogs, and spymail (more on that below). Employee awareness of this matter is crucial in order for them to speak with caution in what they say, and avoid lending undue credence to material that appears private but is actually easily accessible to anybody who requests it.
Create smart data security policies.
Passwords are essential for safeguarding your business, as the recently publicized Dropbox attack demonstrated. This hack was caused by an employee’s careless password management. All important documents, such as webmail, bank portals, medical websites, and HR portals, should employ two-factor authentication. If the services you use now don’t support two-factor authentication, you want to think about using a different provider.
Additionally, only those who truly need to know should have access to critical information. Restrict payroll data to specific individuals rather than the entire accounting department.
Use secure fund transfer tools.
Last year, hackers posing as employees persuaded Ubiquiti Networks to transfer $47 million to foreign accounts. As more businesses fall victim to fraudsters pretending to be in charge of accounts, this is starting to happen often. Last year, hackers posing as employees convinced Ubiquiti Networks to transfer $47 million to foreign accounts.
Put the right tools in place to eliminate spymail.
Emails with a secret tracking code, known as spymail, track who opens them, when and how often they are opened, whether they are forwarded, and the physical locations from which they are opened. The sender receives this information. This puts you at danger and provides the sender with even more information about how your business operates. Spymail usage has increased by more than 284% since 2023.