What is malware? Malware is the collective name for several different types of malicious software that are harmful to a computer user. Malware can be delivered in several different ways including: Email: A link or file is included, and the recipient clicks on the link or opens the file. USB hardware device, e.g. memory stick: […]
What is pretexting? Pretexting is a form of social engineering where a mal-actor tries to convince you to give up valuable information or access to a service or system. The distinguishing feature of this kind of attack is that the mal-actor comes up with a story – or pretext – designed to fool you. In […]
What is a water-holing attack? A water-holing (or sometimes watering hole) attack is where a mal-actor attempts to compromise a specific group of people by infecting one or more websites that they are known to visit. The victims are usually from the same company or organisation and the goal is usually to gain access to […]
What is baiting? The Trojan horse In my earlier post “What is social engineering?” I looked at an example of baiting from Greek myth – the Trojan Horse. In this story, the Greeks have been besieging the city of Troy for 10 years and failed to penetrate its defences. So the Greeks constructed a wooden […]
What is vishing? Your phone rings and someone on the other end introduces them self as calling from a well-known company. Are they really? Or is this a scammer? Vishing, a combination of “voice” and “phishing”, is a phone scam designed to get you to share personal information. The call is designed to instil FUD […]
What is phishing? In my last blog post, I answered the question “What is social engineering?“. In this post, I will look at some of the different types of phishing attacks. Phishing is the most popular form of social engineering attack. In 2018 phishing accounted for 36% of all social engineering attacks and it’s estimated […]
What is social engineering? We’re constantly hearing the term “Social Engineering” in relation to cybersecurity and cyber-attacks, but what is social engineering? Lexico’s Oxford English dictionary defines it as: The use of centralized planning in an attempt to manage social change and regulate the future development and behaviour of a society (in the context of […]