The hacker attack on Twitter, which affected presidential candidate Joe Biden, ex-President Barack Obama, and Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, is one of the most significant attacks on a social media platform to date. According to Twitter, it is due to social engineering. The attackers could obtain privileged access data to an administrative tool that is usually only available to internal support teams.

People make mistakes, so companies will never rule out successful social engineering attacks entirely. But there are five measures a company can take to reduce the attacker’s success rate massively.

Awareness Building

Regularly raise employees’ awareness of security threats and ongoing training on cybersecurity best practices. In particular, attention should be drawn to the risks associated with money orders or the forwarding of confidential and personal information.

Use Of Privileged Access Management

One of the best proactive ways to minimize the risk of privileged access is to implement the least privilege principle within privileged access management. This means that the access rights of users should be restricted to the minimum necessary for the respective role. This can prevent an attacker from moving sideways in the company network – even after a successful social engineering attack.

Use Of Multi-Factor Authentication

One-factor authentication, for example, with a password, is always a single point of failure. Therefore, multi-factor authentication should be mandatory for access to critical systems, and this means that every social engineering attack comes to nothing.

Use of Dual Control Systems

No employee should have full access to confidential platforms without multiple levels of security. At least a four-eyes principle must apply. An employee only receives access to a critical system if they have received approval for this from a second authorized user or additional system logic (e.g., a ticket management system).

Monitoring Privileged Activities

The continuous monitoring of privileged sessions and analysis tools enable the automatic detection of risky behavior or unusual activities. Based on this information, a company can quickly initiate the necessary measures.

Also Read: The Art Of Cyber Risk Prediction And How To Stay One Step Ahead Of Cyber Attacks

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In general, the response data obtained by cybercriminals among workers is high: 47% of employees in the IT industry acknowledge having clicked on a phishing email, and 43% of people say they have made a mistake in their work with repercussions on cybersecurity.

This occurs because the activity of cybercriminals has been increasing. The costs that cybercriminals have to bear are not that high, but their return is. Legally pursuing them is, on the contrary, very complicated, which makes their activity a kind of no-man’s-land.

On the other hand, and despite the increased awareness of the effects of cybercrime, Internet users continue to be potential and recurring victims of these practices, both in their private lives and at work, opening the door to potential millionaire losses in the latter case.

Why Do We Keep Falling Into The Trap?

But why do workers keep falling for cybercriminal scams? Sometimes knowledge fails, and the absence of internal training in cybercrime leads to “stung.” Therefore, companies must constantly train their staff in terms of security.

In other cases, cybercriminals have played well with human nature. Thus, for example, your emails and hooks are capable of mimicking legitimate messages. Their actions seem feasible, leading to less mistrust. In one of the latest waves of bank scams in northern Spain, cybercriminals even switched languages to make the idea that they were staff from the affected bank more credible.

In addition, cybercriminals play with human psychology, using risk aversion, fear of problems, or panic in the face of economic loss as elements to capture the attention of their recipients. Just as these hooks work in legitimate environments, such as marketing, they also work in those not, such as cybercrime.

To all this, the context must be added, which has not been the most positive in the last two years. In addition to imposing teleworking and thus opening potential security gaps, the coronavirus crisis created a situation of high anxiety. The stress leads to more errors committed and makes it easier to fall into the clutches of cybercriminals.

Finally, it must be added that there is a starting bias that makes us weaker: a study has shown that it is assumed that one “is not going to fall” and that it is always the others who bite.

How To Shield Yourself

In conclusion, falling into the traps of cybercriminals is too easy, forcing companies to take control of the situation and prevent it before they cure. Investing in cybersecurity saves money from the potential impact of security breaches, but it also positions the company much stronger.

Also Read: Ten Cybersecurity Threats That Companies Should Integrate Into Their Compliance Systems

The post Why Do Employees End Up Falling Prey To Cybercriminals? appeared first on TechReviewsCorner.

Identifying Threats At An Early Stage

The old saying that prevention is better than cure is also applicable to cyber security. Instead of waiting to be attacked before upgrading your security system, it would be best to identify potential weak points and correct them before the actual attack happens.
Here are some ways to identify threats at an early stage:

1. Conduct A Third-Party Assessment

Most companies will always trust their security system as long as they haven’t been attacked. However, this doesn’t mean that their security system is of top quality; because they may not have faced a severe threat or attack yet. Therefore, it’s advisable to let a reputable cyber security company assess the level of your security system. 

With a third-party assessment, it’s possible to identify threats that your team failed to identify before. Moreover, the security company has more experienced professionals in the cyber security field; therefore, they’ll suggest better upgrades that you can make on your system. 

2. Penetration Testing

In penetration testing, the company’s security team takes the role of a cybercriminal to try and test the scale of the company’s cyber security system. The team will test for any authentication errors, configuration errors, and many other issues. 

When done early or during the developmental cycle, penetration testing can help identify vulnerabilities in websites, applications, and networks. The testing is done on different stages to ensure that any threat is identified and dealt with before it develops into a major security risk. 

3. Anti-Virus Software Installation

Having reliable anti-virus software installed in your system can always alert you to any security risk. A good anti-virus program will prevent cyber-attacks on your system by thwarting viruses and warning against any form of malware such as phishing attacks sent through emails, or through other software and applications.

When your IT security team is alerted to any form of threat at an early stage, they can follow up to see the extent of the attack. Moreover, reliable anti-virus programs can uninstall the threat on their own or prevent the installation of malicious applications. 

4. Threat Detection Logs

An advanced IT system should have threat detection logs that will help your IT team identify any suspicious activities in your network, such as unauthorized logins and access. Threat detection should prevent these activities whenever an attempt is made. Additionally, your team can always review the logs regularly to see the activities on their network and identify any threat.
When your security team reviews the logs and identifies any sign of threat, they’ll be able to locate the most vulnerable part of the system. They can then scale the security system in that area to prevent any further attempts.

5. Crowdsourced Attack Simulation

Typically, hackers may be considered as the bad guys in any cybersecurity sector. However, in crowdsourced attack simulation, a group of ‘white hat’ hackers or ethical hackers are invited to ‘attack’ your IT security system and find any vulnerability.

Once hackers identify threats, they can report to your security team and even help them develop a better security system. However, when working with white hat hackers, you should be keen to look for a reliable group that won’t take advantage of your system’s vulnerability. 

6. Automated Monitoring System

The use of artificial intelligence can be significant in threat detection. Your IT security team can use an automated monitoring system that will help identify any bugs and provide solutions to them. Also, the monitoring system can detect threats by detecting irregularities in the network. The system then sends timely warnings to your IT security team so they could deal with the threat.

Conclusion

Preventing cyber threats and attacks is a critical way of ensuring that your business, especially the sensitive data and information within it, are protected. Moreover, having a strong cyber security network in place will boost the company’s reputation and public confidence as clients are more willing to work with companies that can ensure the security of their accounts and personal information.
Therefore, it’s essential to have a system that can detect any form of threats at its early stages before they scale to a devastating and irreversible level. With practices like third-party assessments and automated monitoring, your team will be able to deal with any cyber security risks more efficiently.

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