What to know about the Social Engineering Scams of Clickbait, Ransomware, and Phishing
Clickbait
“Huge snake eats man alive!” Have I got your attention? What if I posted a link to a video of the ordeal? You just might be tempted to click, especially because many legitimate articles and other pieces of content use similarly eye-catching headlines to get people to look at their stuff. Cybercriminals get this, and they exploit it. A particularly popular approach is to capitalize on the innately human desire to crane one’s neck to see an accident on the side of the road. So beware of links to overly graphic terrorist attack images, natural disasters, and other tragedies.
Ransomware
A nasty business. It’s also social engineering at its finest/worst. Ransomware is a type of malware that holds your files or part of your system ransom. In order to return access, you have to pay cybercriminals. People who want their precious data back might pay up right away. But for those who need additional scare tactics, criminals have come up with law enforcement scams that make it appear as though the U.S. Department of Justice or FBI Cybercrime division are contacting you to claim that you’ve done something illegal.
Phishing
A form of social engineering that relies on fooling people into handing over money or data through email. Bad guys accomplish this by sending a generic message out to a huge mass of people that might say something like, “You won $1 million! Click here for your reward!” Sadly, there are those that still fall for this.
