Navigating the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity can be tricky for anyone.
While we strive to be vigilant, sometimes even the best of us can fall victim to clever tactics. The numbers tell the story: social engineering schemes account for a significant portion of cyber-attacks, and human error plays a role in a large number of security incidents.
In fact, a whopping 98% of all cyber-attacks involve some form of social engineering, while a staggering 84% of organizations have experienced a security incident caused by a human error.
Now, before you throw your hands up in despair, hear me out. While completely eliminating the human factor might be a utopian dream, we can significantly minimize its impact.
In this article, we’ll discuss the deceptive world of social engineering attacks, how they prey on our inherent vulnerabilities, and most importantly, how we can leverage the power of technology to empower and protect users.
So, grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and let’s get started on building a more secure future!
What Is Social Engineering & How It Happens
In contrast to technical exploits, social engineering preys on inherent human tendencies like trust, helpfulness, and even fear.
In a social engineering attack, cybercriminals trick individuals into sharing sensitive information, clicking malicious links, or granting unauthorized access to systems. Some of the most common social engineering tactics involve phishing, SIM swapping, and MFA fatigue.
And these all represent highly successful tactics. A study by Verizon found that 82% of data breaches involved a human element, highlighting the significant role the human factor plays in these attacks.
Phishing involves sending deceptive emails or texts disguised as legitimate sources.
These messages often create a sense of urgency or exploit curiosity, prompting users to input sensitive information such as passwords or SMS OTPs, click on malicious links or attachments that compromise their personal information, or infect their devices with malware.
Phishing is a very popular fraud strategy with a new phishing site created every 11 seconds.
In a SIM Swapping attack, cyber criminals convince a user’s mobile network operator to issue them a new SIM card with the user’s phone number. Once in possession, they can use SMS OTPs sent to the new SIM to bypass security measures and access sensitive accounts.
Before the user even realizes what happened, the damage has been done. An immense 80% of all SIM Swapping attacks are successful.
On the other hand, MFA Fatigue involves bombarding a user with numerous MFA requests, overwhelming them and increasing the likelihood they’ll approve a fraudulent request just to stop the barrage. While MFA is a valuable security layer, attackers exploit the human tendency to seek convenience, potentially compromising security in the process.
So, why are we susceptible to these attacks?
Often, cumbersome authentication processes, with multiple steps and verifications, can lead users to seek shortcuts or become complacent, inadvertently creating openings for attackers.
While eliminating the human factor entirely might be unrealistic, considering human nature, we can significantly minimize its impact by pushing for cybersecurity education, and implementing robust security solutions that “protect users from themselves”.
Minimizing Human Factor & Social Engineering Risks
Cybersecurity education should be your frontline defense.
Training your teams (and yourself!) to recognize those fishy emails, suspicious texts, and urgent requests for “account verification” is pivotal.
Think of it like learning to spot a counterfeit bill. Once you know the signs, you’re less likely to get duped.
You can find various workshops online or you can organize your own cybersecurity program to cover identifying social engineering attacks, understanding urgency and authority plays, promoting healthy skepticism, and the role and importance of mobile authentication solutions.
Your employees should learn about phishing, SIM swapping, MFA fatigue, and the whole arsenal of tricks they may run into.
Moreover, they should be aware of the false sense of panic and blind obedience cybercriminals usually create to trick them. Instead, they should question and verify requests, especially when they sound or look off.
And finally, they should be taught about the role and importance of mobile authentication solutions and multi-factor authentication systems. But it’s also important to note that you could be doing more in this department to promote cybersecurity within your company.
Even with the best training, people make mistakes. That’s where technology should step in.
Mobile authentication should be both secure and easy to use, or the risks of the human factor endangering your cybersecurity increase.
When an authentication process is cumbersome, humans will typically find ways around it to make it easier. In fact, 20% of SMBs cite ‘inconvenient to use’ for resisting MFA.
On average, business users authenticate 10 times each day to access the business applications, data, and IT services they require to perform job tasks. When that’s the volume, no wonder the human factor is such a common element of data breaches.
As an example, passwords don’t have the best user experience. That’s why 52% of people reuse the same password for some of their accounts while 1 in 8 US adults use the same password for every single one of their online accounts.
And this is one of the most frowned upon practices, even in the most mainstream of the media. Imagine what happens with solutions that aren’t as much general knowledge as passwords.
With secure and seamless authentication, however, this shouldn’t be the case. And that’s precisely how we have designed IPification.
IPification verifies users against a unique Mobile ID key generated on the user’s device. This key combines information from the user’s device, SIM card, and mobile network.
For the user, the process is seamless. With a single tap, they send an authentication request. The user’s identity is then verified in milliseconds, all without any sensitive data ever leaving their device! This ensures both convenience and enhanced security.
That being said, there is a chance it isn’t right for your use case. But we can help you figure this out.
We’ll find the right balance between security and user experience that works specifically for you.
Just contact us to schedule a session. We’re looking forward to getting to know you!
