This week, I’m circling back to the subject of email security to talk about socially engineered attacks. We’ll go over how they work, what problems they cause, and how we can work together to strengthen your defenses. I might scare you a bit, but I promise it’s for your own good.
In socially engineered attacks, the hacker studies the intended victim and designs a personalized phishing scheme intended to fly under the radar (after all, the best crimes are those that are never discovered). The attacker identifies the victim’s vulnerabilities and tracks their behavioral patterns. Do you transfer x amount of dollars to a specific vendor every month? This information may be used by the assailant to pose as that vendor, use similar language, and request a transfer within a similar context. We have even seen attacks where a known vendor’s order form was copied and used to appear legitimate. With socially engineered attacks, all it takes is a moment of weakness or distraction to fall pray to these intricate and insidious assault. Here is an in depth read on social engineering attacks and various techniques attackers use. I highly recommend reading up and increasing your awareness.
As artificial intelligence and security services get better at detection, attackers rely on more targeted socially engineered attacks. It does not matter who you are or what you do. If you use an email address and have contacts who trust you, you make a great target. So how can we strengthen our defenses? We have already been beefing up our email security stack as a response, and in the coming days we’ll be launching a comprehensive email security review for all of our clients. Certain security features such as multiple factor authentication are tremendously helpful in keeping bad players out, and it will be an important part of our review. My team and I will always look out for you, and we ask you bring the same level of commitment for your cybersecurity so we can keep you safe.
We’re here for you, and together, we’ve got this!
– Burak Sarac, Team Lead
Screen Share during FaceTime
If you got all hyped up for the release of iOS 15 last fall and then let Apple’s regular software updates roll on as usual, you may have missed an incredibly useful FaceTime screen-sharing feature that dropped with iOS 15.1: SharePlay. This feature allows users to share their screen and content during FaceTime calls. Read the full article here.
National Write Your Story Day
This holiday is celebrated on March 14th and is a day to celebrate the uniqueness that we all possess. Where are you from, what is your culture, who were you and how did you become who you are now? Your story doesn’t even need to be written well – it is the act, not the quality, of writing that is beneficial to us all. Check out this article on the art and benefits of memoir writing.
Choose Your Own Insta Story Background
Anyone who’s added a photo to an Instagram Story knows the app slides its own gradient underneath, based on the colors in the image. Sometimes that default choice is perfect, other times it’s not. There are, in fact, three ways to change the background of an Instagram Story, and they’re easy to handle once you know the right buttons to press. Learn how here.
National Good Samaritan Day
The other day, a friend told me about the New York custom of forcefully assisting others with carrying heavy items up/down the subway stairs. They explained how often no words are exchanged (the helper simply assumes the person needs help, picks up the heavy thing, and starts walking) and rarely is someone left to fend for themselves. While this particular expression of kindness feels slightly aggressive, it is the kind of action to celebration on March 13: National Good Samaritan Day. For more inspiring stories on acts of neighborly kindness, check out this article.
