It’s important to understand that most cyberattacks happen when hackers and cybercriminals exploit the existing technical vulnerabilities. However, scammers often exploit human weaknesses too, and that’s what social engineering is all about. In simple words, social engineering refers to all the hacks, means, and methods that criminals use to get sensitive information out of a user. For instance, if an employee divulges passwords, you may have your IP cameras hacked. So, how do you protect your business and employees from social engineering? We have a few tips and suggestions below that may come in handy –
Know the threats
The first step is to understand how social engineering works. In most cases, the hacker wants the user to simply divulge the information they need. For that, they may use something that creates fear, like scareware. Then there are standard means that scammers use all the time – phishing, vishing, and smishing being prime examples. When the scammer wants to get information through email attacks, it is called phishing, while the same kind of threat when happens on phone, it is called vishing. Smishing refers to scamming people over text messages. When you know the different ways in which social engineering works, your business can take the right steps. In some cases, employees can be lured to share business information, in promise of a good amount.
Train your employees
If there is one tool that works against cybercriminals, it is employee training. You have to ensure that your employees are aware of social engineering, so that they know what kind of people they are dealing with. You can hire cybersecurity experts for workshops and programs on a regular basis, and make sure that this kind of training is made mandatory for onboarding of new employees.
Restrict access
It is also important to determine resources that are vulnerable and are more likely to be useful to cybercriminals. For such IT resources, devices, and networks, you may want to restrict access. There are some really good identity & access management suites that can help in determining and deciding who has access to what within an organization, in a transparent manner. This further helps in disaster recovery, because your IT teams can easily find the source of the leak.
Also, recommend a good spam filter and antimalware suite for your employees, and make sure that they are using some sort of password management tool. In the nutshell, social engineering attacks can be prevented.
