Source
Yesterday I had a training about cybersecurity and the risks people take online and offline.
like in many of these kind of trainings often breaches are cause by humans at first.

Ransomware
For instance ransomware comes in different files but (almost) always first a user has to click on that file to activate.
So often, when a ransomware attack is happening, human interact caused the incident. So (have been told often) never click on a link or file from which you don't know the origin. If you get a file or mail from someone you know ALWAYS contact that person if they really sended that file or mail to you to be sure it's safe... and even then....

Social Enginering
The instructor gave us some great examples of social enginering and the things you could do with it.
For instance the information people put online, birthdate's , locations and sometimes even their telephonenumbers.
Hackers or troll's use that information to create a profile of that person. For instance whenever you call a bank or a serviceprovider often the company ask's a verification to check if it's the right person who's on the telephone. Often that would be a birthdate or the last three digit's of a bankaccount.

The birthdate is often quiet simple to get, the bankaccount number isn't that hard neither. If someone throws his receipe of a transaction away after they paid in the supermarket you have that numeber too.. (when the person paid with a bankcard).

Social enginering also take place a lot in companies, imagine this scenario:

Hacker calls company: "Hello with Robert, I want to speak with the lady of the financial administration please"
Telephone operator: "Hello sir, which lady do you mean, there are several here"..
Hacker: "eh...yes I spoke to her yesterday, can't recall her name, she had a dark voice"
Telephone operator: 'Ow ok than it has to be Jane Doe"
Hacker: "Yes that's her"...

When the telephone operator want's to put the hacker trough on the line he hangs up the phone.
He now has the name of a woman on the financial administration.
Then when he looks online if he can find something about her, information he could use, he wil save that.
He visit's the company's coorperate website to see if he can find their naming convention for the email, when he does he can quiete wel guess what her email should look like. With that information he then can try to spoof or hack her mailbox. If a hack works he can gather information about financial things of the company, suppliers etc.
In worst case he can then approach clients with fake-bill's and steal money in that way... and remember, the first step was only to find out her name..

While this sounds very overdone, these things are real life examples, that's how simple a hacker is able to get the right information for his actions.

Another example, a famous Dutch presenter was victim of a burglary although no one knew where she lived. Turned out that she always posted her posts on Intagram with geo-location on, on her phone. If you then post a lot of posts with the text "Nice workout @ home" or "Relaxing on the couch @ home".... then yo make it easy to reveal your home isn't it..

So be wise with the informtion you share

• Never use public of free wifi (or with a VPN)
• Avoid sharing personal information as much as possible
• If you have no need for your geo location turn of the option
• Verify always the information someone sends to you and you weren't expecting it.
• Don't click on files you don't trust or have verified..

Stay safe

Have a great day

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