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With the holidays on the horizon, spirits are high—and it’s those same high spirits that hackers want to exploit. ‘Tis the season for clever social engineering attacks that play on your emotions, designed to trick you into giving up personal info or access to your accounts.
Social engineering attacks unfold much like a confidence scam. A crook takes advantage of someone’s trust, applies a little human psychology to further fool the victim, and then pulls off a theft. Online, a social engineering attack will likely involve a theft attempt of personal or account information that the crook can then use to make purchases, drain accounts, and so forth.
Not at all in the holiday spirit, right? Let’s take a look at some of their top tricks so that you can spot and avoid them.
As said, spirits can get high this time of year. There’s looking forward to gatherings with family and friends, the fun that comes along with hunting for that perfect gift, and the excitement of the holidays overall. And that’s what hackers count on—people getting caught up in the rush of the holidays, to the point where they may not look at emails, offers, shipping notices, and such with a critical eye. That’s how the scammers get their foot in the door.
Some of their favored tricks can look a little like this:
What are the holidays without that trendy “must-get” gift item, the one that’s seemingly out of stock no matter where you look? Scammers are keen on these items as well and will prop up phony ads and storefronts that pretend to sell those items but really don’t. Instead, they’re just a shady way for them to steal your debit or credit card information—or to lift a few bucks out of your pocket in return for nothing.
One way to keep from getting burned by one of these scams is to follow the old adage, “If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.” In this case, crooks are using feelings of scarcity and urgency to get you to bite. Here’s where you can take a moment before you click to do some research.
Answers to these questions can separate the good businesses from the bogus ones.
Like the above, crooks will create a sense of urgency about a hot holiday item or limited time offer. The twist comes when they request payment via a gift card rather than by credit or debit card or other legitimate online payment methods. This request is highly deliberate because gift cards are much like cash. Once the money on the card is spent, it’s gone, and these cards do not offer the same protections that come with other payment methods.
You can avoid this one easily. If anyone asks you to use a gift card as payment, it’s a scam. Gift cards are for gifts, not payment, says the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). If you come across such a scam, you can report it to the FTC as well.
Donating to a charity in someone else’s name is often a popular gift. Much the same, giving a donation to a worthy cause feels particularly good this time of year. Once again, scammers will take advantage of these good intentions by propping up phony charities designed to do nothing more than dupe you out of your money. Whether that’s a flat-out phony charity or one of the many other scam charities that have been known to pocket 90 cents of every dollar donated, this is the time of year to be on the lookout for both.
The advice here is much the same as the advice for avoiding phony businesses and retailers. Do your homework. The Better Business Bureau maintains a listing of charities that can help you make good donation choices. Also, your state government’s charity officials can help you separate good charities from bad—and even file a report if you suspect a scam is at play.
And once again, if a charity is asking for donations in the form of cash, gift cards, or wire transfer, just say no. That’s a surefire sign of a scam.
Scammers know you have packages in transit this holiday season, loaded with gifts that you’re eagerly tracking. Enter another classic scam—the phony shipping notice. The idea is that you already have so many packages on their way that you won’t think twice about opening an email with a “shipping notice” that comes in the form of an attachment. Of course, that attachment is a fake. And it’s loaded with malware.
Too bad for scammers, though. This is another one you can steer clear of rather easily. Don’t open such attachments. Shipping companies will almost certainly send along notices and invoices in the body of an email, not as an attachment. If you have a question, you can always visit the shipper’s website and look up your tracking info there. Likewise, follow up with the customer service department of the company that you purchased the item from in the first place.
While the holidays are a special time for scammers too, there are several things you can do to up the level of your protection now and year ‘round. A quick list includes:
No doubt, the holidays have a feel all to themselves, one which hackers and crooks want to take advantage of. They’ll craft their tricks accordingly and try to twist the good times that roll around at the end of the year into scams that capitalize on your good intentions. As you can see, it’s not too tough to spot them for what they are if you pause and take a moment to scrutinize those emails, offers, and sales. And that’s the thing with the holidays. We can all feel pinched for time at some point or other during this stretch. Look out for their pressure tactics and seemingly clever ways of using social engineering to rip you off. That way, you can spend the holidays focusing on what’s important—your friends and family.
The post Social Engineering: Tis the Season for Tricky Hackers appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Imagine you’re driving down a highway to get to work. There are other cars on the road, but by and large everyone is moving smoothly at a crisp, legal speed limit. Then, as you approach an entry ramp, more cars join. And then more, and more, and more until all of the sudden traffic has slowed to a crawl. This illustrates a DDoS attack.
DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service, and it’s a method where cybercriminals flood a network with so much malicious traffic that it cannot operate or communicate as it normally would. This causes the site’s normal traffic, also known as legitimate packets, to come to a halt. DDoS is a simple, effective and powerful technique that’s fueled by insecure devices and poor digital habits. Luckily, with a few easy tweaks to your everyday habits, you can safeguard your personal devices against DDoS attacks.
The expansion of 5G, proliferation of IoT and smart devices, and shift of more industries moving their operations online have presented new opportunities for DDoS attacks. Cybercriminals are taking advantage, and 2020 saw two of the largest DDoS offensives ever recorded. In 2020, ambitious attacks were launched on Amazon and Google. There is no target too big for cybercriminals.
DDoS attacks are one of the more troubling areas in cybersecurity, because they’re incredibly difficult to prevent and mitigate.. Preventing these attacks is particularly difficult because malicious traffic isn’t coming from a single source. There are an estimated 12.5 million devices that are vulnerable to being recruited by a DDoS attacker.
DDoS attacks are fairly simple to create. All it takes are two devices that coordinate to send fake traffic to a server or website. That’s it. Your laptop and your phone, for example, could be programmed to form their own DDoS network (sometimes referred to as a botnet, more below). However, even if two devices dedicate all of their processing power in an attack, it still isn’t enough to take down a website or server. Hundreds and thousands of coordinated devices are required to take down an entire service provider.
To amass a network of that size, cybercriminals create what’s known as a “botnet,” a network of compromised devices that coordinate to achieve a particular task. Botnets don’t always have to be used in a DDoS attack, nor does a DDoS have to have a botnet to work, but more often than not they go together like Bonnie and Clyde. Cybercriminals create botnets through fairly typical means: tricking people into downloading malicious files and spreading malware.
But malware isn’t the only means of recruiting devices. Because a good deal of companies and consumers practice poor password habits, malicious actors can scan the internet for connected devices with known factory credentials or easy-to-guess passwords (“password,” for example). Once logged in, cybercriminals can easily infect and recruit the device into their cyber army.
These recruited cyber armies can lie dormant until they’re given orders. This is where a specialized server called a command and control server (typically abbreviated as a “C2”) comes into play. When instructed, cybercriminals will order a C2 server to issue instructions to compromised devices. Those devices will then use a portion of their processing power to send fake traffic to a targeted server or website and, voila! That’s how a DDoS attack is launched.
DDoS attacks are usually successful because of their distributed nature, and the difficulty in discerning between legitimate users and fake traffic. They do not, however, constitute a breach. This is because DDoS attacks overwhelm a target to knock it offline — not to steal from it. Usually DDoS attacks will be deployed as a means of retaliation against a company or service, often for political reasons. Sometimes, however, cybercriminals will use DDoS attacks as a smokescreen for more serious compromises that may eventually lead to a full-blown breach.
DDoS attacks are only possible because devices can be easily compromised. Here are three ways you can prevent your devices from participating in a DDoS attack:
Now that you know what a DDoS attack is and how to protect against it, you’re better equipped to keep your personal devices and safe and secure.
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The post What Is a DDoS Attack and How to Stay Safe from Malicious Traffic Schemes appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
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