Will you open when a stranger knocks? #SocialEngineering

We had the pleasure of having a meeting of the minds with Greger Wikstrand @GregerWikstrand on a recent #IDTheftChat – hosted by the Identity Theft Resource Center @ITRCSD and Eva Velasquez @ITRCCEO. We encourage you to make time to watch this quick 6 minute video in which Greger does a great job of explaining social engineering attacks using plain language.

A couple highlights:

Today, the mobile phone is the master key to your whole digital life. With access to your mobile phone you get access to your main email account and through that you can reset the password of almost any service you are using.

There are all sorts of attackers we can imagine, from robots that whiz through tons of combinations in a short time, to social engineering where we are exploited to being the insider that opens the castle to the invaders.

Whatever physical or technical protection we put up, there will still be something that we’re not protected against. And what do we have to do then? We have to have awareness… everyone should know that you don’t open attachments from strange people.

But still, people do.

We see them, often.

We need a combination of awareness and technical protection.

The role of awareness is critical in our own physical as well as digital security! Knowing where danger lies gives us a chance to avoid it. Think about it, if you aren’t aware that you should NOT click on attachments, you are at risk from those types of attacks. If you weren’t aware that using the same password for multiple sites is a major attack vector by hackers, you might be tempted to do just that. But, you’ve been following this blog as well as the news, so you know better – right!?

Protect yourself by being aware of the threats around you! And when it comes to your passwords, be sure to use a password manager to remember all your long, strong and unique passwords. We recommend Sticky Password.

We look forward to hearing from Greger again, soon!