You’re Biggest Cyber Threat Could be Your Own Employees.

If a hacker wants to gain access to your company’s secure or financial information they usually turn to social engineering instead of high-tech equipment and stunning computing skills. Hackers understand social behavior and interaction and can manipulate it to their advantage. For this reason uniformed and untrained employees could pose the greatest risk to your cyber security.

It’s no surprise that many of us have preconceived notions of what a hacker looks like and the types of skills they possess. Film portrays them as young reclusive adults who are intelligent and computer savvy. They’re hidden away in their mother’s dark basement surrounded by high-tech equipment and computer screens. 

That couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, they’re just criminals young and old who are often hidden in plain sight. Sometimes we even interact with these people on a daily basis. Hackers could be competitors, maintenance personnel, business partners, or an attractive young lady claiming to be lost in your building.

At this year’s annual Cyber Security Summit James Adams, Cyber Director at Resolute Source, spoke on the most common corporate social engineer vulnerabilities.  The data used in the analysis was gathered from dozens of corporate cyber vulnerability assessments. Adams argued that company’s tend to rely on data security rather than educating their employees about hacker social engineering tactics and techniques.     

Tagged: Social Engineering, Cyber Crime