IT Security: How users and their endpoints are exploited by "bad hackers", who will eventually find their way to their critical data.
It’s common sense that users are the weakest link in the IT Security chain globally, especially careless or uneducated users. But how exactly do “bad hackers” exploit this ignorance or carelessness to “crack” user endpoints and break into corporate accounts? Many of the methods they use involve only a small part of psychological trickery, as phishing and social engineering tend to play a significant role in the majority of attacks. Here are some of the best – and worst – ways that users themselves “leave their cards open” to a potential attack.
1. Getting "caught" in a Phishing scam
First on the list and the simplest trick hackers use to launch a powerful and sophisticated attack on users' systems is phishing. It remains a hacker's best friend because it simply works. According to the Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report, within a week, 23% of phishing email recipients open the malicious emails and 11% open the attached files contained within them. As we have mentioned in recent article , it takes just 82 seconds from the moment a phishing campaign begins for users to start "biting" the fake baits.
2. Answering fake phone calls
Following the same pattern as phishing, sometimes the easiest way for attackers to gain access to users' systems and accounts is to simply ask for it. The classic social engineering method is an old standby. Often all it takes is a call from the hackers to the victim pretending to be IT and a request for the user's login and password. Or they could pretend to be an internal employee or business partner and ask the employee to open a specific document, which is actually a remote access Trojan.
(To be continued... Stay Tuned)
