Poll: Employees Clueless About Social Engineering

Fresh from Dark reading: "When it comes to social engineering, Pogo, the central character of a long-running American comic strip, said it best. "We have met the enemy and he is us."

It was 1971 when Walt Kelly penned the cartoon with the celebrated quote; Pogo, who lived in a swamp, was talking about Earth Day. Today, the same sentiment can be applied to employees who are blissfully ignorant of the lengths criminals will take to gain their confidence in order to breach an organization’s security and steal proprietary data.

But don’t take my word for it. According to a recent Dark Reading flash poll, more than half of 633 security professionals who responded said that the most dangerous social engineering threat to their organizations was due to a lack of employee awareness."  Full article with much more data at DarkReading.

What’s the most dangerous social engineering threat to organizations?

636 survey takers responded to this question

Criminals posing on site as contractors or employees 12.11% [ 77 ] Employees aren't aware of it 55.97% [ 356 ] Phishing emails 20.60% [ 131 ] "Vishing" (phone social engineering) 4.72% [ 30 ] What's social engineering? 3.77% [ 24 ] Other (please explain in the comments) 2.83% [ 18 ]