Pretexting is a form of social engineering in which attackers use misleading techniques to obtain information, systems, or services. When a cybercriminal creates a fake situation to gain a victim’s trust, they often pretend to be reliable, such as an IT professional, competent investor, or HR representative. This attack can occur across different transmission channels, including personal interactions, and is not limited to online platforms.
How Cybercriminals Use Pretexting?
Cybercriminals use pretexting as an advanced method in social engineering. They create fake identities or accounts to trick users or companies into revealing personal information or engaging in activities that help the attacker.
On an organizational level, a pretexting attacker can pretend to be a trusted individual, such as a manager, colleague, or customer. They could create a fake account by setting up email addresses, websites, or social media accounts.
The attacker plans meetings with the victims in more sophisticated ways. For example, a hacker can pretend to be a seller representative and set up an appointment with someone who can access confidential client data. The attacker would like to appear reliable and establish rapport during this communication. Thus, once the hacker asks for sensitive details, it is more likely that the victim will genuinely accept.
Example of Pretexting
One of the most common pretexting attacks involves cybercriminals impersonating someone within a company’s high-status personnel, such as its CEO, an IT staff member, or an HR manager. The hacker, being another person, creates some scenario that would deceive the victim into giving out personal information or sensitive data. These hackers employ this identity because they can target employees with high returns.
Professional networking sites are rife with scams involving cryptocurrencies. Attackers can pretend to be amateur investors, detaining unwitting individuals with ‘get rich quick’ offers. To boost confidence in the victim, they might even create websites that look authentic or have phony reviews. However, should such a person decide to invest money and later want to withdraw it, the attacker may prevent this by arguing issues such as taxes, additional fees, or violated minimum account balances.
What is the Distinguish Between Pretexting and Phishing?
Pretexting and phishing are two forms of social engineering. Pretexting generally implies that it is used to obtain personal information from people with fraudulent intentions. This might entail social security numbers, health insurance information, and login details. An imposter could, for instance, pose as a model agency in an attempt to retrieve private pictures.
Pretexting is misleading another person by pretending to be someone else, primarily to gain access or information. Phishing involves deceiving individuals into giving personal information via phony emails or websites.
As opposed to pre-texting, which depends on trust built through impersonation, phishing leverages victims’ anxiety or urgency. Both these common methods of social engineering serve cybercriminals in acquiring anybody’s confidential information.
How to Protect Against Pretexting Attack?
Many cybercrimes happen inadvertently due to human errors and a lack of training in privacy and security issues. Consequently, hackers always seem to have an upper hand over them. It is quite challenging to keep track of numerous online threats; however, we must know the risks.
- Users must check whether their email addresses and banking details are correct before responding to unsophisticated messages. They can confirm the legitimacy of the business by contacting it through alternative avenues.
- You can keep your workforce alert and stop a pretexting attack before it worsens by reminding them regularly to report any questionable communication and creating a culture where anybody can speak up. Staff members must remain vigilant about any phishing attacks.
- Businesses must ensure their staff receive proper email management training from outside sources. Furthermore, implementing a zero-trust strategy can help significantly reduce the chance of private data leaks.
- You should contact the merchant directly for confirmation before granting any payment request from them.
Conclusion
An organization must provide training and education on security awareness, especially regarding pretexting attacks that rely on people’s trust, emotions, and weaknesses. However, this does not provide a safe solution as cybercriminals change their tactics with emerging technologies even if one has increased awareness and training. As such, organizations should use advanced technology in their cybersecurity systems to improve their defenses while offering the best possible value.
FAQs
What can be done to prevent pretexting?
Here are some of the preventive measures:
- Justification being scrutinized
- Asking for identification regularly
- Training your employees
And what exactly does pretexting mean in the business world?
Pretexting refers to creating situations that make future social engineering attacks more likely to succeed.
What Steps Improve Cybersecurity to Prevent Pretexting?
Preventing pretexting requires a comprehensive strategy that includes zero-trust policies, stringent access control rules, explicit data management protocols, and educating employees about social engineering techniques. In addition, this technique enables contextual access enforcement, providing a strong defense against pretexting attacks by evaluating data both at rest and in motion.
