Here are the seven common strategies attackers use to target individuals.
1. Social Media
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By Choosing a social platform, hackers increase their attack surface by letting an unknown party access their professional network. There are numerous social platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter where people connect based on mutual interests and professional connections. Attackers can send direct messages in ways that seem legitimate but aren’t. Individuals with large social networks, like those in marketing and PR, have more chances to be victimized as they have strong networking and at times they neglect who they’re interacting with. In this way, social media becomes one huge platform which is used by many cyber hijackers to plan their schemes.
2. Impersonation
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Facebook and Instagram are the top two social media accounts which can reveal your entire life history from the places you travel to, your favorite food, to music interests. This has really made the life of hackers easier. Attackers only need to access a few social networks to piece together a full picture of one person’s life. Facebook may have added a few privacy customizations, but public profiles still provide a lot of personal data.
3. Open Source Platforms
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Even if they don’t know the avenue of attack, a lot of intelligence can be generated via open-source means. Say if a hacker is likely to target a public entity, then their official websites can leak out a lot of information which can be further used by cyber culprits.
4. Vishing
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Voice phone solicitation aka Vishing, is a dangerous and one of the most common way for attackers to target their victims. It becomes a piece of cake for attackers to contact businesses under the guise of a new client requesting information. They can collect plenty of information about corporate systems and current problems, and take advantage.
5. Your Ability to Trust
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An individual’s tendency to trust strangers can put your private life in jeopardy. Oftentimes attackers can compel people to send information without identifying themselves. Users often get themselves into serious troubles and get complete trapped where there’s no coming out.
6. Follow up Emails
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Hackers may combine vishing and phishing scams to create a nearly foolproof ploy. First they call the victim to introduce themselves and then offer to send additional information in a follow-up email, which they use to trigger a phishing attack.
7. Inducing Stress Vibes
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Hackers knows this for sure that when we’re under stress, we make bad decisions. Stress leads us to make poor decisions. If someone is overwhelmed, they may pass out sensitive information without verifying the recipient’s identity. This becomes one huge turning point of how their master plan falls right at place.
So here were the 7 common strategies which hackers undertake to target individuals as well as organizations. Always remember you’re the solo commander of your privacy, so there’s not better time than NOW to take charge!
