Pretexting (Social Engineering)

Few days ago, I started a series of social engineering.

 

I explained how social engineering is a strategy used by cyber criminals to manipulate individuals to perform certain actions or divulge confidential information.

 

Today I’ll be explaining one of the types of social engineering and in my future posts will continue with the others.

 

Please pay close attention

 

Pretexting: This kind of social engineering attack involves lies and pretense.

 

The attacker pretends to need a users data in order to perform some certain actions.

 

A very classical example is when an attacker pretends to be a bank official calling a user and asking for financial information.

 

They’ll so pretend and sound real. In some situations, they’ll even be accurate with your personal information. For instance they might call a user and start the conversation this way.

 

“Good day Mr. Timothy, I am calling you from your bank(they’ll mention the name of your bank) please help confirm the following details…your full name is so so so and you’ll say yes. Your email is so so so and you’ll say yes..your date of birth, mother’s maiden name and others is so so so and you’ll say yes”

 

They’ll be very accurate. This is because most of the times, these criminals work with bank officials and like I shared with you guys about my friend who was scammed, these criminals sometimes buy your data from the bank officials.

 

So don’t be surprised when they tell you deep info about yourself.

 

After they have told you about yourself and have sounded accurate, trust has been built..they’ll go on to start asking of your financial information like pins, ATM numbers, OTPs and so on and  thing you should look out for is the urgency of the call.

 

They’ll make it look urgent so they can quickly steal from you.

 

They might say they want to perform an update or something..they’ll just make it sound like an urgent call.

 

Please do not divulge any personal or financial information to anyone no matter who they claim they are.

 

Look out for the trait that will help you catch them…the trait is “THE URGENCY”

 

They will always be in a hurry.

 

Don’t be a victim. Be wise.

 

On a normal occasion, please note..YOUR BANK WILL NEVER CALL YOU ASKING FOR FINANCIAL INFO

 

Share this post so as to enlighten others

 

I’ll be sharing more of the types of social engineering in my future posts

 

Thanks for reading.