Social Engineering is a tactic cybercriminals use to manipulate, influence and/or deceive victims to gain control over a system or steal personal and financial data. The risk with social engineering is that it only takes one person to fall for it and it can jeopardise your entire business, affecting your data and finances, and ultimately your reputation. Therefore, it’s pivotal to stop any social engineering attempts before they get the chance to take control.
How Does Social Engineering Work?
Social engineering manipulates individuals into sharing confidential information or performing actions that will benefit attackers. Phishing is the tactic most people are aware of – an email or text designed to trick recipients into revealing sensitive information or clicking on malicious links, but there are other tactics. Baiting and quid pro quo schemes, both offer something enticing or beneficial in exchange for sensitive information. Pretexting is another where attackers create a fabricated scenario to obtain confidential information under false pretences.
Whilst these methods have been around for a long time, the explosion of AI tools in recent years has enabled attackers to craft more convincing and personalised messages, along with deep fakes. This not only allows them to scale their attacks through automation, but they are more likely to evade spam filters.
Social engineering attacks are therefore on the rise, leading more companies and individuals to suffer from financial loss, as well as reputation damage, operational disruptions and identity theft.
Prevention Strategies
Thankfully, there are numerous ways to prevent social engineering attacks from impacting your business:
Educate Employees
Conduct regular security awareness training with your staff and team so they know what to look out for and refine their response skills. Enforce strong password policies in the workplace and implement multi-factor authentication for all business accounts to add another layer of security. Creating a culture of security within the company will allow employees to report social engineering attacks earlier and prevent people from falling victim to them.
Enhance Cyber Security
Utilise email filtering, data encryption, patch management, and endpoint security software. It is also good practice to conduct regular penetration testing to uncover any gaps or vulnerabilities in your IT systems, helping you stay on top of issues and maintain a healthy level of security.
Leverage AI
Use AI tools to detect and prevent social engineering attempts. If cybercriminals can use AI to aggravate social engineering then businesses can definitely use it to tackle it. Use AI to analyse large amounts of data to detect social engineering attempts, simulate social engineering for employee awareness and analyse emails and messages for anything suspicious.
Implement Policies
Establish clear communication handling procedures, data access controls, and an incident response plan. This makes it easier to track where a social engineering attack could have entered from and therefore allowing it to be stopped quicker.
External Support: How Can IT Security Companies Help?
Ignoring the vulnerabilities within your business only exposes you to data, financial, operational and reputational loss. Whilst the strategies above can go some way to protect your business, if you’re an SME with limited IT staff, then we highly recommend consulting with an experienced cybersecurity company to discuss how you can further strengthen your defences.
At Office Anyplace, we pride ourselves on supporting SMEs with their cybersecurity needs. We offer a range of support such as Advanced Email Threat Protection and a Zero Trust security approach to cyber protection.
Click here for information about how we can assist with protecting your business.
