Human Risk Management Blog

Social Engineering

Latest social engineering news, analysis, tactics the bad guys are using and what you can do to defend your organization.

Kaspersky: Use of New QakBot Banking Trojan that Steals Emails Up 65%

Representing a new evolution of banking trojan, QakBot proves to be a formidable adversary against security defenses with its’ ability to steal emails – your users.

Over $100,000,000 Lost to Romance Scams in Seven Months

People in the US lost $133,400,000 to romance scams between January 1st and July 31st of 2021, according to the FBI. The average amount lost was in the tens of thousands of dollars. The ...

Enterprise Organizations Have as Much as an 85% Chance of Receiving a BEC Attack Every Week

Business Email Compromise is a multi-billion dollar business, representing 43% of all cybercrime last year. Despite it being dwarfed in the news by ransomware, it represents a growing ...

Researchers Discover Vulnerability Used for Deception and SSID Stripping

Researchers at AirEye have discovered a vulnerability in the way in which devices connect to wireless networks that could allow an attacker to trick a user into connecting to a malicious ...

Social Media as Artillery Preparation for Spear Phishing

Researchers at ESTsecurity warn that a North Korean threat actor known as “Kumsong 121” is using compromised social media accounts to launch spear phishing attacks, the Daily NK reports. ...

Business Email Compromise Scam takes New Hampshire Town for $2.3 Million

Social engineering is at the heart of this attack, where scammers successfully tricked a town into redirecting not just one but several bank transfers.

Blame it on the Lizard Brain

People need to work to overcome their inherent biases in order to avoid falling for social engineering attacks, according to Heidi Mitchell at the Wall Street Journal.

5 Ways to Recognize Social Engineering

Social engineering can come in many different forms: via email, websites, voice calls, SMS messages, social media and even fax. If it is a communication method, scammers and criminals are ...

BEC and the Underworld's Resources

Researchers at Intel 471 have observed cybercriminals outsourcing talent for business email compromise (BEC) attacks. This tactic lowers the bar of entry for BEC attacks, which are ...

Cybercriminals Can Post Jobs on LinkedIn Posing as Any Employer They Want

Lax verification around what company is offering a given job on LinkedIn allows attackers to create bogus job postings for malicious purposes.

Nigerian Threat Actors Solicit Victim Organization Employees to Deploy Demon Ransomware

The use of employees as insider accomplices potentially changes how social engineering is being used in exchange for a direct request for internal assistance.

Arrests in International Fraud Scheme Due to Social Engineering

Police in Romania, the Netherlands, and Ireland have arrested and charged twenty-three people accused of conducting sophisticated social engineering attacks. The organized crime group ...

“Compromise” is the “C” in “MICE”

The FBI is warning Silicon Valley companies to be wary of insider threats, Protocol reports. FBI special agent Nick Shenkin told Protocol in an interview that authoritarian ...

Can the Microsoft 365 Platform Be Trusted to Stop Security Breaches?

Lax security policies, a lack of security measures and solutions in place, and an expectation that Microsoft will address any security issues is putting organizations at risk.

Deepfakes Continue to be a Concern as the Technology Improves and Becomes More Convincing

In the wake of the FBI’s warning about more deepfake-based cyber attacks coming in the next year, organizations should remain vigilant against this compelling form of social engineering.

Attackers Use Morse Code to Encode Phishing Attachments

A phishing campaign is using morse code to encode malicious attachments in order to slip past security filters, according to researchers at Microsoft. The phishing emails contain HTML ...

The Anatomy of Smishing Attacks and How to Avoid Them

Cybercriminals and nation-state actors continue to launch smishing attacks to steal credentials and distribute malware, according to Michael Marriott, Senior Strategy and Research Analyst ...

Military Personnel Vulnerable to Fraud

US military personnel and veterans have lost more than $822 million to scams since 2017, according to researchers at AtlasVPN. The researchers analyzed data from the US Federal Trade ...

Android Trojan Goes After Facebook Accounts

A new Android Trojan has hijacked more than 10,000 Facebook accounts by stealing session cookies, according to researchers at Zimperium. The malware uses social engineering to trick users ...

Spear Phishing Becomes a Bigger Problem as the Average Organization is Targeted 700 Times a Year

With threat actors honing their trickery skills to craft the perfect email used to fool a would-be victim recipient, new data shows cybercriminals are stepping up their game on a number ...


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