Look Out for the New Wave of Social Engineering Attack During the Covid-19 Pandemic
When the entire world is struggling to get to its feet amidst Covid-19 challenges and when are all doing merely okay, there are some who are at hard work.
The situation has given them a golden opportunity to work even harder.
Who might that be, you think?
Cybercriminals and hackers. Yes, you heard that right.
With a myriad of weapons in their arsenal to steal sensitive data, steal money from bank accounts and ask for ransom, they have always been active. Always.
Now, Covid-19 has become the perfect opportunity they have been waiting. Now they are fearmongering unsuspecting people already worried about their lives and jobs, through a variety of social engineering attack to steel even more money.
What is a social engineering attack?
In a nutshell in the scope of information security, it is the psychological manipulation of people by cybercriminals inducing the preys take actions that might lead to divulging classified, sensitive or financial data.
More often than not, social engineering attacks is a strategized attack concentrated on a single person or persons to collect information.
Now that everyone in the world undergoes anxiety, depression and fears, the cybercriminals have started using the pandemic to take their activism to the next level.
The reports that state increasing number of social engineering attacks during the pandemic have also stated that cybercriminals are now more active than even before.
It is because people are vulnerable and it is easy for them to feed on fears and anxiety.
How can we protect ourselves from social engineering attacks?
While we need to go a long way to ensure that we are protected from cyber attacks and threats, there are things that we can do to ensure that we are protected.
Most of the times, social engineering attacks are engineers towards a person through a strategic approach and series of interactions.
As people we all must stay alert and be in the look out to understand that anything too good to be true.
They might email stating that you have a free insurance coming up to fight Covid-19 and the government is creating policies so as to give you adequate healthcare support.
It can also say that WHO is involved.
It you give some serious thoughts into the messages and email that you get—you may even get calls—they are pretty lousy, and laughable.
This is what you need to do to prevent the next wave of social engineering attacks that come veiled as the help you need in these trying times.
When you think about cybersecurity, being disciplines about your online activities can help you prevent from being lulled into a false sense of security through emails and calls and then exploited.
Avoid being constantly hit by Covid-19-themed attacks by relying only on news sources that you trust. Do not believe information just because it talks about your govt., WHO and Covid-19.
Refrain from visiting websites that have questionable content as such sites are ripe with pitfalls for social engineering attacks.
Conclusion
Like any other cyberthreats, social engineering attacks can also be thwarted to an extent.
Refrain from opening email attachments, sharing account credentials and responding to emails talking about lotteries and free giveaways. These will help you fight cyberthreats which are as pressing as Covid-19, itself.
There is no doubt that hackers will devise new ways to exploit people’s fears, but a disciplined online behavior can make the best impact.