{"id":18562,"date":"2021-08-25T15:54:43","date_gmt":"2021-08-25T15:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/easydmarc.com\/blog\/?p=18562"},"modified":"2023-04-28T08:59:20","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T08:59:20","slug":"how-to-spot-the-top-5-social-engineering-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/easydmarc.com\/blog\/how-to-spot-the-top-5-social-engineering-attacks\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Protect Against Social Engineering Attacks?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Social engineering attacks are more common than ever in the digital age. <\/span>Unfortunately, lack of education about these attacks is also very common. It is now more important than ever to be clued up about these attacks if you\u2019d like to protect your personal information. What can you do to protect yourself? What are some of the early warning signs that suggest you are a soft target for hackers? <\/span>Keep reading to learn all you need to know about social engineering!<\/span><\/p>\n

What is Social Engineering?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Social engineering refers to a range of malicious cyber security threats and activities that are carried out by scammers and hackers. Basically, if you\u2019re a victim of a social engineering<\/a> attack, you were most probably <\/span>psychologically manipulated into revealing personal information and <\/span>putting your data at risk<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Perpetrators thoroughly investigate whomever they want to target and gather information about their weak security protocols and potential points of entry. The most common reasons behind socially engineered attacks are to disrupt and corrupt data to cause an inconvenience, obtain confidential information and financial profit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These attacks <\/span>exploit a victim\u2019s trust, their naivety, and carelessness with sensitive information. This method of exploitation is often called social engineering psychology. Therefore, it\u2019s really important to avoid any behavioral weakness and to exercise caution when receiving\u00a0 fishy messages, emails, and phone calls.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Top 5 Social Engineering Techniques<\/span><\/h2>\n

Scammers and hackers are constantly inventing <\/span>new and improved<\/span> ways to prey on innocent victims for their own agendas. Despite the numerous social engineering techniques out there, 5 of them stand because they\u2019re so common in the world today.<\/span><\/p>\n

These top 5 social engineering techniques are:<\/span><\/p>\n

Phishing<\/span><\/h3>\n

Phishing attacks are carried out via messages, social media, email or sms. These attacks work by tricking victims into accessing a malicious website<\/span>, in order to <\/span>obtain sensitive information from them. Attackers prey on victims by emotionally triggering them, asking for help, arousing their curiosity. A common method of a phishing attack is to gain a victim\u2019s trust by spoofing a reputable organization\u2019s identity using their logos, images, <\/span>domain<\/span> and text styles. This attack method is deemed to be one of the most exploited forms of social engineering.<\/span><\/p>\n

Techniques of social engineering phishing are particularly effective, as hackers are able to send fraudulent messages from email addresses that look to be from the exact same domain name of the entity they target. While the loophole they use is easy to secure, thousands of businesses are still impacted every year, because they don\u2019t authenticate their email origin. A simple <\/span>DMARC Record lookup<\/span><\/a> will tell you if your organization is at risk.<\/span><\/p>\n

Warning Signs of Phishing Attacks:<\/span><\/h4>\n