Social Engineering is the art of manipulating, influencing, or deceiving you in order to gain control over your computer system. The hacker might use the phone, email, snail mail or direct contact to gain illegal access. Phishing, spear-phishing and CEO Fraud are all examples.
Hoes does it work? It is often as simple as an email asking you to view an invoice, check out suspicious logins on your account, or even update your password. Cyber criminals will make these emails look as legitimate as possible, and then use social engineering to convince you to carry out the action without second-guessing the action. In more advances attack, such as spear-phishing, the emails may even appear to come from within your organisation. All of this is to convince you to do something that would allow hackers to infect your PC with ransomware or other forms of malware. Often, criminals will attempt to convince you that their email is ‘urgent’, and that something bad will happen if you do not click the link, such as you being locked out of one of your accounts. This tone of urgency is a classic social engineering ploy, and is big factor to look out for when you suspect an email may not be legitimate.
Remember: Always Think Before You Click