Blogs and Posts

Employee Education Thwarts Social Engineering Threat

• By: Garry Feldman
• Date: February 16, 2016

Employee Education Shuts Down Social Engineering Threat
You alarm your house, car and business, so why not arm your employees with information. The best way to prevent network security breaches is user education. Sounds easy enough, but do you and your employees understand the danger that Social Engineering threats present?

What is Social Engineering?
Social Engineering is the process of getting people to perform actions which leads them to reveal confidential information. The confidential information once revealed, is then used to gain access to your data, or straight away fraud. Social Engineering ploys are adept at deceiving the intended victim, difficult to predict, and many times go unnoticed until the intended target has been breached.

Wait, What Happened?
Recently, while taking time off to celebrate the holidays an administrative employee opened what looked like a legitimate email from the CEO of a small business. This executive frequently travels and often request money transfers. The socially engineered email led the employee to provide details, which ultimately could have cost the small business over $100,000 in losses. However, because of carefully followed authentication policies, the attempt was thwarted and the funds were never dispersed.

How Can Buying Lunch Once A Month Help Save Money?
Your best defense against Social Engineering attacks is employee education. Keeping your employees vigilant, requires consistent training and strong authentication procedures within your organization. Consider a monthly security lunch & learn in your conference room or lunch room. Order some pizzas and take advantage of webinars available to remind employees of the scams to avoid. Use the time at the end of lunch to pass the dessert platter, and reiterate the authentication process your company follows.

Who offers free Monthly Network Security Webinars?
For monthly security webinars, visit uscomputer.com. U.S. Computer Connection offers free monthly Network Security Employee Training webinars for business, healthcare providers and nonprofits in CT, NY & beyond.