{"id":5852,"date":"2024-05-21T15:22:36","date_gmt":"2024-05-21T13:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/?p=5852"},"modified":"2024-05-22T12:25:19","modified_gmt":"2024-05-22T10:25:19","slug":"cybercrimes-science-of-deception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/archives\/5852","title":{"rendered":"Cybercrime\u2019s science of deception"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Social engineering is the practice of influencing people into making mistakes. It\u2019s the calculated science of deception and psychological manipulation \u2013 and cybercriminals are exploiting it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Cybercriminals are using our cognitive biases \u2013 the mental shortcuts our brains use to quickly make decisions and judgments \u2013 to gain the upper hand.<\/p>\n

Here are just a few of the tricks they use that we must be more aware of:<\/p>\n

Authority bias:<\/strong> People tend to comply with requests from authority figures. Social engineers impersonate managers or anyone who might have legitimate reasons for requesting information or access.<\/p>\n

Scarcity bias:<\/strong> \u201cFor a limited time only\u201d is a common sales technique. A fear of missing out creates a sense of urgency, just like social engineers often do via phishing attacks and other scams.<\/p>\n

Reciprocity bias:<\/strong> People often feel obligated to return favours. Attackers can leverage this by offering to help someone with a (non-existent) technical problem, thereby getting their target to reveal a password.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Turn the tables on cognitive bias<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Slow down:<\/b> Social engineers love catching people when they\u2019re too busy to think clearly \u2013 hasty decisions can be costly.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t assume:<\/strong> Impersonation is one of the key tactics of attackers. Never assume someone is who they claim to be.<\/p>\n

Verify:<\/strong> If you encounter an unusual request, reach out directly to a trusted source (such as a manager) to verify its legitimacy.<\/p>\n

Think critically:<\/strong> Social engineers want to gain your trust and use your emotions against you. Use critical thinking before reacting.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Social engineering is the practice of influencing people into making mistakes. It\u2019s the calculated science of deception and psychological manipulation \u2013 and cybercriminals are exploiting it. Cybercriminals are using our cognitive biases \u2013 the mental shortcuts our brains use to quickly make decisions and judgments \u2013 to gain the upper hand. Here are just a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5855,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[273],"tags":[261],"class_list":["post-5852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-knowledge-centre-afrocentric-10","tag-afrocentric10"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5852"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6107,"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5852\/revisions\/6107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmediacreative.co.za\/afrocentric\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}