KnowBe4 Blog

Social Engineering

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

Verizon: Pretexting Now Tops Phishing in Social Engineering Attacks

The New Verizon DBIR is a treasure trove of data. As we covered here, and here, people are one of the most common factors contributing to successful data breaches. Let’s drill down a bit ...

Why Do You Still Need Security Awareness Training If You Use Phishing-Resistant MFA?

For years, KnowBe4 has been a long-time proponent of everyone using PHISHING-RESISTANT multi-factor authentication (MFA) whenever possible.

North Korean Phishing Campaign Targeting Think Tanks, Academics and Media

The U.S. and South Korean governments have issued a joint advisory outlining a North Korean phishing campaign, The Register reports. The threat actor, known as “Kimsuky,” is targeting ...

[FBI ALERT] Skin Deep: The Scary Reality of New Deepfake-Enabled Sextortion

Today, the FBI alerted warned against a new even more disgusting type of sextortion. Previously, these schemes involved coerced or stolen digital material, but now some criminals are ...

Verification and Deepfake Fraud Trends in North America

Forced verification fraud and deepfake fraud are on the rise in the US and Canada, according to researchers at Sumsub. Pavel Goldman-Kalaydin, Sumsub’s Head of AI & ML, explains that ...

[Wake-Up Call] It's Time to Focus More on Preventing Spear Phishing

Fighting spear phishing attacks is the single best thing you can do to prevent breaches.

Spear Phishing Trends in 2023

50% of organizations surveyed were victims of spear phishing attacks in the last twelve months, according to a new report from Barracuda. The report also found that, on average, ...

“Magic Link” Phishing Attacks Scamming Users With Fake McAfee Renewals

Threat actors are using encoded phishing links to evade security filters, according to Jeremy Fuchs at Avanan. The phishing emails purport to be notifications from McAfee informing the ...

[Mastering Minds]  China's Cognitive Warfare Ambitions Are Social Engineering At Scale

As the world continues to evolve, so does the nature of warfare. China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) is increasingly focused on "Cognitive Warfare," a term referring to artificial ...

Verizon Sends New Smishing Warning

Verizon has renewed its warnings to customers about the threat of smishing, a social engineering approach that relies upon texts as opposed to other communication channels like the email ...