A Growing Menace

While today's digital landscape has transformed almost every aspect of human life for the better, it has also exposed both individuals and businesses to new forms of vulnerabilities.

- MARY ANN LL. REYES

As we have become more reliant on technology and social media platforms, we have also become more exposed to their dangers.

Social engineering refers to the techniques used by cybercriminals to manipulate individuals into divulging confidential information that can be used for fraudulent purposes.

According to McAfee, it is essentially an act of tricking people so that they give away their personal information such as passwords, bank account numbers, social security numbers, or other valuable data. This is achieved not through technical means but through human interactions.

Because most people are not aware that they are being targeted until it's too late, social engineering is considered one of the biggest threats to cybersecurity. McAfee explains that the success of a social engineering attack relies heavily on the ability to make the target believe that the attacker is someone they can trust or someone who has a legitimate reason for needing the information being sought. It exploits the natural tendency of a person to trust others and to want to help others, especially those who appear to be in a position of authority or in distress. For instance, most people will not suspect a friendly phone call or an email from a co-worker to be a potential threat.

Kaspersky, for its part, explains that scams based on social engineering are built around how people think and act. "As such, social engineering attacks are especially useful for manipulating a user's behavior. Once an attacker understands what motivates a user's actions, they can deceive and manipulate the user effectively," it said.

It adds that most social engineering attacks rely on actual communication between attackers and victims. The attacker tends to motivate the user into compromising themselves, rather than using brute force methods to breach one's data.