Every year, social engineering attacks are employing more advanced techniques. Technology continues its inexorable march forward, and its advancement in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning — deepfake technology, for example — will further exacerbate social engineering risks.
Social engineering can be defined as the psychological strategies scammers use to manipulate humans into clicking on compromised links or divulging sensitive information. Social engineering comes in many forms, including emails, phone calls and texting. These attacks exploit users’ fears, curiosity or helpfulness to trick individuals into sharing data such as login credentials, bank accounts or social security numbers. Commonly, they’ll redirect victims to websites harboring drive-by malware downloads and initiate phishing attacks.