Top White House officials fall for prankster social engineering tricks

Aug 10, 2017 7:25:48 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

A UK-based email prankster used social engineering tactics to fool several top White House officials into responding to his messages, including the Trump administration’s cybersecurity ...

Lessons from Social Engineering Disasters to Improve Security

Aug 8, 2017 12:35:01 PM By Stu Sjouwerman

Michele Fincher from the excellent team at www.social-engineer.com wrote: "In my fantasy life, I’m Ruby Rose from John Wick: Chapter 2, Gina Carano from Haywire, with possibly some ...

New Dark Web Site Offers Automated Social Engineering-As-A-Service

Jul 5, 2017 10:47:22 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

This Site Creates Robocalls to Steal People’s Credit Card PINs A June 30, 2017 post on Motherboard revealed a V1.0 of a site that does automated social engineering as a service, and has ...

Windows 10 Stops Ransomware Cold? Not So Fast!

Jun 25, 2017 8:46:11 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Recently, Microsoft claimed that no known ransomware could penetrate the new Win10 Creators Update.

See Me On Video At The NYSE Cyber Investing Summit Pitching KnowBe4

Jun 18, 2017 9:52:46 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

The CyberWire wrote: Pitches: "Innovation from Young Companies The Pitch Panel was the Cyber Investing Summit's fast round of innovation pitches, moderated by Allegis's Bob Ackerman and ...

New PowerPoint Social Engineering Attack Installs Malware Without Requiring Macros

Jun 9, 2017 6:38:08 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Researchers at Security firm SentinelOne reported that a group of hackers is using malicious PowerPoint files to distribute 'Zusy,' a banking Trojan, also known as 'Tinba' (Tiny Banker). ...

Inside the Tech Support Scam Ecosystem

Apr 15, 2017 9:37:50 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Dennis Fisher at OnThe Wire reported on some fascinating research by three PhD candidates at Stony Brook University. He wrote: "Fake tech support schemes have been a scourge on the ...

Verizon: "Most Breaches Trace to Phishing, Social Engineering"

Mar 6, 2017 9:57:55 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

BankInfoSecurity wrote: "Ninety percent of data breaches seen by Verizon's data breach investigation team have a phishing or social engineering component to them. Not coincidentally, one ...

Phishing Attack Uses Stuxnet Technology And Makes PCs Into Roombugs

Feb 26, 2017 9:43:16 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Researchers have uncovered an advanced malware-based operation that siphoned more than 600 gigabytes from about 70 targets in a broad range of industries, including news media, and ...

KnowBe4 Introduces New “Social Engineering Indicators” Training Method

Feb 7, 2017 8:50:07 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Today, we are introducing a new training method that IT managers can use to better manage the continually increasing social engineering threats. Social Engineering Indicators (SEI) turns ...

Criminal India Call Center Uses Social Engineering To Scam 15,000 Americans

Jan 7, 2017 7:45:17 PM By Stu Sjouwerman

I got alerted by a Slashdot story about we have been covering here several times. An FBI agent based in India says the country has now become a major hub for call-center fraud, blaming "a ...

Expect Malicious Machine Learning In 2017, making social engineering more effective

Jan 2, 2017 11:06:42 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Intel Security's McAfee Threat Predictions for 2017 (PDF) observes that advances in technology are essentially neutral and that developments like machine learning should be welcomed, but ...

Russian Breach US Grid? Nah, Someone Fell For Social Engineering And Enabled Macros

Dec 31, 2016 10:38:19 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Breathlessly, the Washington Post reports that the Russian Grizzly Steppe malware was found within the system of a Vermont power utility. Nah, they just dodged a bullet. This time someone ...

Disk-Killer Malware Adds Ransomware Feature And Charges $200,000+

Dec 29, 2016 7:57:49 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Talk about adding insult to injury with this new KillDisk version. Here is how social engineering can cost you dearly. The Sandworm cybercrime gang has upped its game. They were initially ...

Scam Of The Week: George Michael Dies At 53. Watch out for phishing attacks

Dec 26, 2016 11:16:50 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Today, news broke that George Michael was found dead on Sunday at his home in Goring in Oxfordshire, England. He was 53. A police statement said: “Thames Valley Police were called to a ...

Scam Of The Week - Fake News: a Content-based Social Engineering Attack

Nov 25, 2016 1:51:24 PM By Stu Sjouwerman

Facebook, Google, and Twitter have recently been facing scrutiny for promoting fake news stories. Depending on your sources and who you believe, fake news played and is still playing a ...

10 Ways To Avoid Holiday Scams

Nov 23, 2016 3:55:35 PM By Stu Sjouwerman

With the biggest cybercriminal hacking holidays of the year upon us, it's time for a reminder of red flags to pay attention to when shopping either online or in brick-and-mortar stores.

This social engineering attack starts with a fake customer-service call

Nov 17, 2016 6:00:57 PM By Stu Sjouwerman

Michael Kan at CSO reported on a TrustWave blog post with some troublesome news: "Hotel and restaurant chains, beware. A notorious cybercriminal gang is tricking businesses into ...

The New Posterboy of CyberInsecurity: John Podesta Fell For Social Engineering Attack

Oct 22, 2016 10:26:56 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Motherboard has a great article explaining just how Podesta, Chairman of the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign got hacked. (Podesta previously served as Chief of Staff to ...

AI-powered ransomware is coming, and it's going to be terrifying

Oct 12, 2016 8:09:30 AM By Stu Sjouwerman

Business Insider started an article with the following: "Imagine you've got a meeting with a client, and shortly before you leave, they send you over a confirmation and a map with ...

Security Awareness Training Blog

Social Engineering Blog

View Topics