There are far too many wolves in sheep's skin on the internet. Their sole objective is to create havoc by:
Enticing you with offers that are too good to be true
Suggesting a sense of urgency or utmost priority
Intimidation or scaremongering
Emotional attachment
Similar to Loki, the god of mischief and the trickster, Social Engineering Attacks take various forms:
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Whatever the channel used by the criminals, fraudsters or tricksters, always stay alert, protect your private and confidential information, such as, Login credentials, personal Identity, banking, and financial information. Also, beware of the fake software or enticing offers; you could be downloading a malware/ransomware the next minute.
The simple safeguarding mantra to embrace is ”Think Fast but Click Slow!”.
The history of phishing attacks goes back to the era of Nigerian prince stealing your money to the organised crime groups and nation state attackers to distribute malware with the aim to steal your identity, data and/or computational power for malicious reasons.
In present times, these attacks are getting more sophisticated and becoming increasingly difficult to spot.
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There is a reason why phishing attacks, in particular via email and now also SMS are incredibly successful. They target us – "The Human"! We can be easily enticed or lured and tricked into performing an act in favour of the fraudsters and cyber criminals.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
We are the best security we can buy, to protect ourselves and families from the fraudsters and criminals. In all cases,
Never trust a display name of an email. Regardless of it coming from someone you know, you care our you trust – Friends, families, colleagues, officials, doctors, law and enforcements etc. Always check sender's full email address and ensure that it is from the authorised sources.
Out of the blue email or SMS with urgencies, intimidations, emotional attachments should raise alarm bells. Always verify the context and the sender.
Finally, the general rule of thumb to apply on top above 2 action points is that "if it is too good or bad to be true then it probably is".
Never forward such emails or text to others. STOP. THINK. ACT. REPORT!
Contact Us: info@stupa.io
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