Protecting
yourself against social engineering scams
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| Scam sites |
That’s
my story so far, so now let’s concentrate on the essence of it.
Even if this was all a misunderstanding the risk is real. Social
networking is always a great tool for social engineers. Knowledge is
power and this is especially true when it comes to social
engineering. The more the social engineer knows about his victim, the
more likely he is to be successful in his schemes. I am generally
against monitoring and
restricting but stories like this make me stop and think whether it
is the right thing to do after all.
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| Cash cards |
What
if this sort of thing were to happen to my children? What if s/he
falls in love with a person of malicious intent? We all know how
dangerous strong emotions can be, trying to save her/him once s/he is
deeply in love will be impossible and the more you try to do to
convince her/him of the mistakes s/he might be doing, the more likely
it is to drive him/her away. What’s worse is that even if you
manage to expose the scam the emotional impact will certainly be
devastating at this stage. On the other hand the only other option
would be to switch to a 1984 state of affairs and rigorously monitor
any and all communications. Both are obviously wrong.
And
this is not just for your household; the same applies to the
workplace. Over monitoring your network will have detrimental effects
on the employees’ morale, and might even be illegal in some cases.
However even if it were legal, would you want to monitor
your employees’
communication on social sites? What about private emails? The
obvious, safer solution is to disallow these sites however this will
have a detrimental effect on morale too.I guess in both personal and
professional scenarios your best bet would be education. Although it
will not be 100% effective, some people claim that it’s not
effective at all, it will hopefully make people question such events
if they are aware of the risks. On the other hand, in cases such as a
dating scam, the request for money will happen when it’s too late,
as the person will already be too hooked to second guess anything so
education is unlikely to work here.
Who’s
really lurking behind that profile page?
The
dating scam is just one of the scams that are happening via social
networking. I have heard on a first hand basis of people being
scammed for many things. Malicious people making friends with victims
and after a while say that they have to drop out of school because
they can’t afford it. In some cases the victims themselves offer to
help out financially and are thus scammed of their hard
earned cash without
even having to be asked to hand over money. At the end of the
day social networking is a haven for con artists. Con artists can
befriend their victims very safely. You become friends to a profile
in essence and there is no guarantee that the profile has any truth
to it whatsoever. If a con artist is patient he can build a good
trust relationship and then spring any number of traps – from fake
lucrative investment schemes to a great opportunity that cannot be
passed by.
Finally
I caution you to not make the classic mistake of thinking that this
could never happen to you or your loved ones. I urge you to always be
on guard. Furthermore it might be a good idea to warn friends and
family about the dangers of social networking. When I explained the
dating scam/human trafficking risk to my friend her answer was, ‘I
didn’t know that this happens on the internet’ which
is a common and ultimately understandable stance. People who aren’t
in IT wouldn’t automatically think of these issues unless they
experience them firsthand and by then it will be too late.What do you
think? I would love this to turn into a debate on the different views
regarding social networking. Which method would you choose to protect
yourself and others, both at home and professionally? Do you think
that the blocking option is the right way to go? Monitoring perhaps?
Or do you believe that education is effective enough to be the only
safety mechanism in place?
