Social engineering attacks have become a prevalent digital threat, but they’re not new. Bad actors have evolved their attacks, and cybersecurity technology and methods have responded accordingly.
However, social engineering attacks don’t require anything unique or revolutionary. Instead, they apply the old age: sometimes, the easiest way to get through a locked door is by asking someone inside to open it for you.
These attacks leverage our trust, curiosity, and even fear to bypass the most sophisticated security measures by exploiting the most unpredictable element in cybersecurity: humans.
That doesn’t mean you’re defenseless, though. You can do plenty of things to better protect your company from social engineering attacks. Below, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know to understand these threats and safeguard your business.
What is a social engineering attack?
A social engineering attack is when cyber criminals use trickery and deceit to bypass technological safeguards and exploit the most vulnerable link in the security chain: employees. Attackers use psychological manipulation to coax individuals into divulging confidential information or granting access to restricted areas.
Social engineering attacks can be just as devasting (if not more so) than any other cybersecurity threat. A successful social engineering attack can lead to devastating consequences, including financial loss, data breaches, and irreparable damage to a company’s reputation.
Imagine the fallout from leaked customer data or the financial blow from a well-executed CEO fraud. These scenarios aren’t just nightmares—they’re happening every day, and no business (regardless of your size) is exempt from the threat.
The cunning nature of social engineering lies in hacking the human psyche rather than exploiting software vulnerabilities. Attackers play on a wide array of psychological triggers:
- Authority: We’re conditioned to respect authority, making us more likely to comply with requests from someone who appears to be in a position of power.
- Reciprocity: If someone does us a favor, we’re inclined to return the gesture. Attackers might offer ‘helpful’ advice or assistance to elicit information or access.
- Social proof: We look to the behavior of others to guide our actions, particularly in uncertain situations. Attackers mimic common behaviors or create fake endorsements to persuade their targets.
- Urgency: Creating a sense of urgency or fear can lead to hasty decisions, bypassing our usual caution and skepticism.
Common vulnerabilities
Once you understand your vulnerabilities, you’ll be better prepared to stop the threats. While every business’s susceptibilities will vary, here are the weaknesses social engineering typically tends to target:
The human element: Trust and routine
Trust is a fundamental human trait that fosters cooperation and societal functioning. Your business needs a certain degree of trust to function. All of society does, to some extent. However, this inherent trust can be a double-edged sword, exploited by attackers to gain unauthorized access or information.
Routine is a risk, too. Our daily tasks, performed almost automatically, can make us complacent. Social engineers exploit these routines, camouflaging their attacks as regular, non-threatening activities that don’t raise alarms until too late.
Organizational gaps: Policy and training
A lack of proper policy and training can undermine even the most robust technological defenses. Organizations without clear, comprehensive security policies (or those that fail to enforce them) create openings for attackers.
Training is equally important—employees unaware of social engineering tactics and their indicators are more likely to be manipulated.
Information overload and digital footprints
Your employees likely receive dozens (if not hundreds) of emails daily and weekly. And that doesn’t include all the calendar requests, video conferencing, text messages, and Slack conversations. With all these messages, distinguishing between genuine and fraudulent communication becomes increasingly challenging.
Additionally, our expansive digital footprints, scattered across social media and the web, provide attackers with a goldmine of personal information. This data can be used to tailor attacks to make them more convincing and harder to detect.
Technological advancements
Social engineers are using evolving technology to create more dangerous, widespread attacks. For example, they’re leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to create compelling fake emails at scale.
These advancements mean that yesterday’s detection strategies might not work today, requiring non-stop vigilance and adaptation. And that’s easier said than done.
Recognizing these vulnerabilities is the first step toward protection. While you can’t control every element (especially the human one), you can take steps to safeguard your business by updating your policies, implementing mandatory training, and reducing your digital footprint.
Types of social engineering attacks
Social engineering attacks come in all shapes and sizes, and they’re always changing. Each is tailored to explore specific psychological triggers.
Here’s a quick rundown of the most prevalent types of social engineering attacks:
- Phishing: Perhaps the most well-known form of social engineering, phishing attacks involve sending fraudulent emails that mimic legitimate sources. The goal? To trick recipients into divulging sensitive information like passwords or credit card numbers or to infect their devices with malware. Phishing’s dangerous cousin, spear-phishing, takes this deception further by targeting specific individuals with personalized messages, making the ruse even more challenging to spot.
- Pretexting: Here, attackers fabricate scenarios or stories to obtain personal information. The attacker might pose as a bank employee, a member of the IT department, or any authority figure who could plausibly require the requested information. The detailed backstory adds a layer of credibility to the request, lowering the target’s guard.
- Baiting: True to its name, baiting involves offering something enticing to the target as a lure. This could be a free music or movie download that leads the victim to a malicious website or a USB drive labeled “Confidential” left in a public place. It tempts the finder to plug it into a computer, thereby installing malware.
- Quid Pro Quo: Similar to baiting but with a promise of a service or a benefit in exchange for information or access. For example, an attacker might call random numbers within a company, claiming to be calling back for technical support. Once they reach someone with a genuine issue, they offer to fix the problem in exchange for login credentials.
- Tailgating: Tailgating involves an unauthorized person following an authorized person into a restricted area. Often, the attacker will appear to be a harmless individual who has simply forgotten their access card, relying on human courtesy to gain entry.
- Watering hole: This sophisticated attack involves compromising a website known to be visited by the target group. The attackers infect the site with malware, waiting for the unsuspecting victims to visit the page and get infected.
- Vishing (voice phishing) and Smishing (SMS phishing): These are variations of phishing conducted via phone call (vishing) and text message (smishing), respectively. Attackers use these methods to extract personal information or financial details from targets by posing as legitimate institutions or organizations.
Social engineering examples
Here are a few real-life social engineering examples that can teach us a thing or two about the nature of these attacks:
- The Twitter Bitcoin scam (2020): High-profile Twitter accounts (including those of Elon Musk, Joe Biden, and Apple) were compromised to promote a Bitcoin scam. Attackers used social engineering to access Twitter’s internal tools, tricking employees through a phone spear-phishing attack. The aftermath included a massive PR crisis for Twitter and diminished user trust.
- Sony Pictures Entertainment hack (2014): Attackers used spear-phishing emails to infiltrate Sony Pictures’ network, leading to the leak of sensitive data, personal emails, and unreleased films. This attack was attributed to political motivations, but at its core, it exploited the human tendency to trust familiar-looking communications. The fallout involved public embarrassments, legal battles, and a reevaluation of email security practices industry-wide.
- Ubiquiti Networks data breach (2021): Ubiquiti, a major vendor of cloud-enabled networking devices, experienced a data breach initiated through social engineering. Attackers accessed Ubiquiti’s systems by impersonating an employee to gain credentials from a third-party cloud provider. The breach exposed customer information and highlighted the vulnerabilities in supply chain security.
How to protect yourself from social engineering attacks
While social engineering attacks will always threaten you and your business, that doesn’t mean you’re defenseless. There are steps you can take now to better protect yourself and mitigate the risks of an attack:
1. Implement strong email authentication protocols
Implementing robust email authentication protocols is your first line of defense against the barrage of phishing and spoofing attacks. Protocols like DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) ensure that emails purportedly coming from your domain are legitimately yours.
This, combined with SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), forms a robust verification trifecta that significantly reduces the risk of email-based fraud.
2. Create an incident response plan
An incident response plan gets you prepared for when (not if) a social engineering attack will breach your defenses. A well-structured plan helps you respond quickly to minimize damage and restore operations quickly. This plan should outline specific steps for containment, eradication, and recovery.
3. Use Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI)
BIMI takes your email authentication strategy further by visually confirming your brand’s authenticity directly in your customers’ inboxes. When you implement BIMI alongside DMARC, your verified emails will display your brand’s logo next to the email subject line, giving recipients an instant visual assurance that the message is legitimate.
This boosts engagement and deters fraudsters from attempting to impersonate your brand.
4. Educate and train employees
Provide your employees with regular training sessions to educate them on the latest social engineering tactics and how to recognize them. These sessions should cover everything from spotting phishing emails and understanding the principles of safe online behavior to recognizing the signs of a phone or in-person social engineering attempt
5. Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA)
Multi-factor authentication adds a layer of security by requiring users to provide two or more verification factors to access a system, account, or application. This means that even if a hacker manages to steal a user’s password, the stolen information alone is not enough to breach the account.
MFA combines:
- Something you know (like a password)
- Something you have (like a smartphone app or a security token)
- Something you are (like a fingerprint or facial recognition)
6. Limit privilege access
Limiting privilege access—also known as the principle of least privilege (PoLP)—involves granting employees and systems the minimum levels of access needed to do their jobs. This strategy reduces the risk of a security breach by minimizing the potential damage that can be done if an account is compromised or misused.
7. Adopt a zero-trust security model
Adopting a zero-trust security model means operating under the assumption that threats can originate from anywhere. Nothing inside or outside your network should be trusted by default.
This model requires verification of every attempt to access resources in the network, regardless of where the access request comes from or what resource it accesses. This typically involves strict identity verification, micro-segmentation of networks to limit lateral movement, and least-privilege access controls to minimize each user’s access.
8. Keep software and systems up to date
Cybercriminals quickly leverage any security holes in outdated software, making these exploits one of the most accessible paths to unauthorized access. Regularly update your operating systems, applications, and security software with the latest patches and versions to close vulnerabilities that attackers exploit.
9. Conduct regular security audits and simulated phishing exercises
Security audits provide a comprehensive evaluation of an organization’s adherence to security policies and the effectiveness of its security measures. Simulated phishing exercises mimic real-life phishing attempts to test employees’ awareness and reactions to deceptive emails or messages.
These exercises help pinpoint potential weak spots within the organization’s human and technological defenses and serve as practical, hands-on training for your staff.
Protect Your Business from Social Engineering with Valimail
Securing your business against social engineering attacks requires more than just awareness and good practices—it demands robust, cutting-edge solutions that can stay ahead of attackers’ evolving tactics.
And that’s where we can help.
Valimail offers a suite of powerful solutions to transform your email security posture and ensure your communications are protected against the most cunning social engineering attacks:
- Monitor: Gain visibility into your email ecosystem with Valimail Monitor. We eliminate the guesswork and complexity of interpreting raw DMARC data, giving you the clarity and control you need to secure your email channels.
- Align: Fast-track your way to compliance with Valimail Align. Our automation tools streamline aligning all your services with the stringent requirements of leading email providers like Google and Yahoo.
- Enforce: Achieve the gold standard of email authentication—DMARC enforcement. This defends your domain against phishing and impersonation attacks and safeguards your brand’s reputation.
- Amplify: Display your logo next to your email messages to boost brand recognition and secure Google’s coveted blue checkmark.
Schedule a demo with one of our experts to discuss your needs and how to better protect your domain and brand.
