These kind of questions have been topical for many years now and the same questions keep popping up even more after the average consumer has realized that it’s not Keanu\’s ”Matrix” or Bullocks ”The Net”. The threat of losing your identity is real and it can cause real world harm. Real world and the cyberspace are so intertwined with cloud computing and social networking to mention two, that everyone needs to take precautions to keep private information safe.
But what can be done to one weak link in the chain that can be “hacked” without any computer or complicated algorithms? All the way back in history people have been threatened, lured and even physically attacked to get access to the computers systems, maps and folders – you name it! This is the one thing that keeps its value even when the surroundings change.
Social engineering is explained in Wikipedia as follows:
Social engineering, in the context of information security, refers to psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. A type of confidence trick for the purpose of information gathering, fraud, or system access, it differs from a traditional \”con\” in that it is often one of many steps in a more complex fraud scheme.
There are now even whole companies that specifically focus on social engineering with customers all the way top of the “food chain”. For example Cambridge Analytica and Black Cube have been in the news lately – and not in a good way. This can be seen as proof that there are rich and powerful people willing to pay (vast amounts) to have outsourced companies use shady tactics to achieve better results in elections, make a business deal, etc. The key is to find the target´s weakest point.
And this, in turn, shows that even with the technologies helping to find access to targets, the actual methods of “leverage” are still the same. Not much has changed in that aspect. Us humans, are the weakest link with computers calculating abilities still following the Moore’s Law. Moving to the next stage; what can you do?
There are many things that are based on common sense. Such as, don’t give your password to anyone (the providers don’t need your password to access the systems) and don’t use unsecure connections (vpn’s are very common and easy to hid the traffic – not to mention TOR network). But what about actions that seem innocent or even noble? For example, what if a person wants to give donation to your child\’s school? At first glance a donation to school seems a good thing, but once the real reason of using it a path to getting closer to the child\’s parents and the parents work in particular.
The world is changing and we need to keep up in order to be safe. Long gone are the days where the 14/36/58 modem was the only access to the internet. Now even kids have mobile device capable of unlimited high speed (4G) access to the internet, with the calculating power of a top of the line personal computer on the palm of their hands. Us humans need to evolve too and fortunately we have been adapting well with the advances in technologies, but as the technology is already so powerful and connected, we need to show that we are not the weakest link.
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