In the digital battleground, the typical image is often a solitary hacker manipulating system vulnerabilities. Yet, a subtler and equally menacing threat pervades cybersecurity: exploiting human frailties through social engineering services.
Skillfully wielding deception, malicious actors deploy phishing, baiting, and impersonation to coax individuals into revealing sensitive corporate information. Mitigating these stealthy threats is imperative, with many defensive strategies at your disposal. Are you eager to explore them? Let’s dive in!
Social Engineering Tests
If you want to protect your business from social engineering attacks, you should look into social engineering tests. What are such tests about? In short, cybersecurity professionals will simulate a targeted social engineering attack on your business and try to get past your defenses.
Why is it useful? Most importantly, it will help you figure out what your weak points are and whether your employees know what to watch out for. Thus, consider investing in such tests as soon as possible!
Keep Everyone Informed
If you want your business to avoid social engineering attacks, you need to make sure that your employees are aware of how dangerous social engineering attacks are. If you have never talked to your employees about it, you need to educate them on the topic as soon as possible.
Ideally, you should make your employees report anything that seems suspicious, such as weird messages or phone calls that ask them for sensitive information, to their team leaders. That way, you will be able to determine when you are being targeted.
Keep Track of Your Hardware
It might sound like a silly tip, but one of the easiest ways to keep your company safe from social engineering attacks is to make sure that you always know where your hardware is. Moreover, you need to make sure that nobody other than your employees has access to it.
If someone with malicious intent gets access to it by, for example, getting the key to your server room by posing as a person responsible for cleaning up the place, it might then get used as an entry point for hackers.
Use Multi-Factor Authentication
One of the best ways to prevent social engineering attacks is to put a limit on the amount of sensitive data that each employee can access. This will limit the damage that can be done by an individual employee who gets tricked into giving up their password.
Other than that, you might want to start using multi-factor authentication, such as allowing someone to access a device only when a different employee authorizes their request.
That way, if anyone gets tricked into giving up their password, another employee might be able to step in and prevent the hacker from accessing sensitive data by denying their request.
Use Background Checks
The best way to protect your company from social engineering threats is to make sure that the people you hire are trustworthy and are not associated with your competitors. You can do that by investing in thorough background checks and security screenings.
Additionally, you might need to find out if a candidate has any history of mental illness or other issues that can make them more likely to fall victim to social engineering attacks. Other than that, they have to know how to act when they are targeted. Ideally, you should provide such an employee with detailed instructions. That way, they will not feel confused.
Train Your Staff Frequently
One of the best ways to prevent social engineering attacks is based on making your staff members take part in cybersecurity training. In order for your training to be effective, it needs to happen at least every few months.
Once you do that, everyone will become aware of what a social engineering attack looks like and what they should and should not do when they are being targeted.
Be Wary of Third-Parties
If your company works with any third-party software providers or cybersecurity experts, you have to make sure that they are reliable. If they fall victim to a cyberattack, they might end up being your weak point, which will then allow hackers to effectively target your company.
Report Suspicious Stuff
If one of your employees feels like something is not right about an email or a phone call that they received, encourage them to tell a superior about it before responding instead of letting them take matters into their own hands.
That way, if there is an issue, someone higher up can be notified before the attacker gets access to any valuable information, and as a result, you will be able to avoid the attack.
The Bottom Line
As you can see, there are many ways, like penetration testing services, in which your business can avoid social engineering attacks. For example, you can encourage your employees to report suspicious messages and phone calls to their superiors, as well as invest in cybersecurity training.
Once you do that, your employees will know what to watch out for, and you will be able to
keep your company safe from social engineering attacks.
If you have any questions about social engineering or can think of other ways to protect your company from cyberattacks, make sure to contact a cybersecurity expert. They will answer your questions and help you improve the cybersecurity of your company quickly and effectively.
