Social Engineering Attacks- In English Please

When you see or hear the term 'Social Engineering', you may just think, "Here we go again with this techie mumbo jumbo". But if I were to ask you if you ever recieved an email that appears to be from someone you know and they expressed that they were in need of your help (being that you are their friend and all). Then there proceeds to be instructions on how to get them the money that they need. That is what is called a Social Engineering Attack, more specifically 'Spear Phishing'.

These 'attacks', are seemingly targeted directly to you in search for your hard earned benjamins. These fraud emails have one goal - to fool you to giving out your personal information. Now, with a watchful and somewhat trained eye, anyone, including yourself, can spot these imposters. How so?

Many of these phishing emails have grammer errors and mispellings in them. And one dead giveaway is that they are asking for information that you wouldn't even give to your closest friend. Oh, and watch out for those crazy promises of enormous sums of cash that will flow your way IF you provide the information they request. On top of the fact that this supposed cash is coming from a crazy island that I may not have ever heard of, I am just not that lucky.

So, what should we do with these phishing emails that we may receive multiple times in a given day? There is a one word answer that will resolve all of your worries - DELETE. Remove these emails and never click on any links within them. Once that is done, pick up the phone and give your friend Linda a call to just make sure she is actually not stranded in some deserted island in need of monetary assistance.

For more information, take a look at this:
http://www.microsoft.com/protect/terms/socialengineering.aspx

Lou Everett

Network Technician

b2Networx, Inc.
www.b2networx.com