Social engineering represents a critical threat to your organization’s security, so you must prioritize the prevention and mitigation of these attacks as a core part of your cybersecurity strategy. Preventing a social engineering attack requires a holistic approach to security that combines technological security tools with comprehensive training for staff and executives.
Your first line of defense against a social engineering attack is training. Everyone in your organization should know how to spot the most common social engineering tactics, and they should understand the psychological triggers that scammers use to take advantage of people. A comprehensive social engineering and security awareness training course should teach staff to:
Determine whether an email has been spoofed by hovering over the sender’s name to make sure it matches the email address and checking the email address for spelling errors and other common giveaways.
Be suspicious of any unsolicited communication, especially from someone they don’t know.
Avoid downloading suspicious email attachments.
Hover over links in emails to make sure the website URL is valid.
Verify someone’s identity through an alternate contact method (e.g. in person or by calling them directly) before providing any sensitive information.
You also need to follow up your security awareness training with periodic tests to ensure your staff hasn’t become complacent. Many training programs allow for the administration of simulated phishing tests in which fake phishing emails are sent to staff members to gauge how many people fall for the social engineering tactics. Those staff members can then be retrained as needed.
Creating a positive security culture within your organization is critical for containing a social engineering attack that’s already happened. Your staff needs to feel comfortable self-reporting if they believe they’ve fallen victim to a social engineering attack, which they won’t do if they’re concerned about facing punishment or public humiliation. If these issues are reported as soon as they occur, the threat can be mitigated quickly before too much damage has occurred.
Finally, you need to implement technological security tools to prevent attacks on your organization and minimize the damage from any successful breaches. These tools should include firewalls, email spam filters, antivirus and anti-malware software, network monitoring tools, and patch management.
Best of Luck!