Social engineering

Social engineering: the invisible threat to organisations

Organisations constantly face evolving online threats, particularly with social engineering attacks, which stand out as one of the most deceptive and damaging tactics used by cybercriminals. This invisible threat exploits human behaviour, often bypassing even the most advanced technical defences, and can result in severe consequences for businesses and individuals.

The solution to all this lies in employee awareness, and by empowering your team with the knowledge to recognise and respond to social engineering techniques is the first and most crucial step in building a strong cybersecurity defence.

Table of Contents

• What is social engineering?
• Why cybercriminals are using social engineering
• Why social engineering is a threat to organisations
• How social engineering works
• Different types of digital social engineering
• Examples of digital social engineering
• Physical social engineering
• What social engineering means for organisations
• How to protect your organisation from social engineering
• Robust security awareness training as part of your ongoing security strategy

What is social engineering?

Social engineering is the method of using manipulative psychological tactics that exploit our feelings and emotions. Often using text messages, WhatsApp, email (amongst other digital communication platforms) as their prefered method of ‘human hacking’, this deceit focuses on the individual and/or organisational vulnerabilities to threaten cybersecurity.

Why cybercriminals are using social engineering

The key here is simplicity: Cybercriminals choose social engineering because tricking a person is often easier and quicker than breaking through technical security barriers using psychological manipulation to illict fear, urgency, or respect for authority. Common strategies cybercriminals use can include:

• Threatening business or personal consequences: This is a manipulative psychological attack using fear-based intimidation to coerce victims into compromising organisational or personal cybersecurity defences.
• Creating a sense of urgency: Cybercriminals exploit time-sensitive psychological triggers to a persons normal critical thinking and force immediate, irrational decision-making in digital environments.
• Exploiting employees' helpfulness, gullibility, or curiosity: By targeting psychological traits like helpfulness and curiosity, cybercriminals are able to breach organisation security through sophisticated emotional manipulation.
• Portraying authority: Cybercriminals leverage hierarchical trust mechanisms to bypass organisational security protocols through sophisticated identity manipulation techniques.

Key insights to remember with social engineering:

• Cybercriminals prioritise human vulnerability over technical complexity
• Emotional manipulation trumps technological barriers
• Understanding psychological triggers is crucial for your defence

Why social engineering is a threat to organisations

Social engineering does not just affect individuals, it creates very serious problems for organisations too. In the business world, small, medium, and large organisations with employees that work online are particularly vulnerable from cyber threats and a data breach. If even one employee falls victim, the organisation’s reputation would suffer, and sensitive data potentially exposed. Digital workplace security risks are very real, and below are some examples why:

1. Exploiting human vulnerabilities: Employees are often the weakest link in the security chain, and from cyber threat exposure, and this is probably the biggest workforce security challenge. Social engineers know this and use their manipulation skills to exploit employees by impersonating colleagues, clients, managers, or trusted figures to gain access to sensitive information.

2. Access to sensitive data: If social engineers succeed, they would gain access to financial records, employee information, customer data, and all other information that should be protected, leading to serious financial and legal repercussions.

3. Reputational damage: A successful social engineering attack will severely harm an organisation’s reputation. Customers lose trust when they discover that their data has fallen into the wrong hands. If you know your bank has had sensitive information stolen (for example) would you trust them to look after your money?

4. Financial losses: Fraudulent activities resulting from social engineering can cause significant financial damage.

5. Legal consequences: If sensitive information is leaked due to social engineering, organisations may face lawsuits and fines, particularly if it is revealed that the data was not adequately protected.

6. Hidden nature of the threat: One of the most challenging aspects of social engineering is that it often goes unnoticed until the damage has already been done. This would cause an organisation huge problems, and vulnerable to cyber attacks in the future.

How social engineering works

Social engineering AKA ‘human hacking’, uses simple psychological tricks to manipulate their targets.

Social engineers exploit our normal human characteristics such as emotions (anger, fear, curiosity, kindness) to create fictitious scenarios that sound real, and use psychological tactics to deceive people.

Social engineering often succeeds because it targets natural human responses and manifests in a variety of forms, thus giving attackers multiple avenues to deceive their victims. Because of this, human hacking is a very adaptable manipulation technique.

Different types of digital social engineering

Social engineering cyberattacks often come in many different forms, with the approach often tailored to the victim using hierarchical cyber threat strategies. A cybercriminal will not target the CEO of a large corporation the same way they will target an entry-level employee.

There are many different styles of digital social engineering, and here are our top 5 social engineering tactics:

Phishing via Email

Phishing is a type of internet fraud where criminals attempt to gain access to personal or corporate data through fraudulent emails often designed to look real and authentic.

Smishing (SMS Phishing)

With smishing, criminals use SMS or other messaging platforms to trick victims into providing sensitive information or transferring money.

WhatsApp Phishing

This is a common example of smishing. The criminal impersonates a friend or family member using a new phone number. They often urgently request money for a supposed emergency. The attacker often researches their victim beforehand, playing on personal details to gain trust. Unfortunately, this tactic remains highly effective, particulatly to those who are technologically vulnerable.

Vishing (Voice Phishing)

Vishing involves fraudulent phone calls where the attacker uses deceptive scripts to trick victims into transferring money or revealing sensitive information.

Whaling (CEO Fraud)

Whaling is a specific form of social engineering where the attacker impersonates a high-ranking individual, such as a CEO. The goal is often to steal sensitive data or gain access to systems. This method is particularly effective because employees tend to respect and obey perceived authority figures.

Sadly these are all highly effective and each social engineering cyberattack costs a company around £130,000 each attack, and as social engineering is not a one-size-fits-all approach it is very difficult to spot until it is too late.

Examples of social engineering

WhatsApp fraud (personal) 

WhatsApp fraud (business-related) 

Email phishing in business contexts 

Physical social engineering

As well as digital, we also need to be looking at the most common social engineering tactics in physical environments, as social engineering isn’t confined to just the digital realm, it happens in physical environments, creating a physical security breach. 2 common examples are;

Data Infiltration: An individual poses as a client or visitor to gain access to internal information.

USB Dropping: Leaving infected USB sticks in strategic locations, hoping employees will plug them in.

What social engineering means for organisations

The rise in phishing attacks and social engineering tactics by cybercriminals demands increased vigilance from organisations of all sizes. Large companies, especially those with extensive workforces, are particularly at risk of social engineering and cyberattacks. Employee mistakes or simply a lack of awareness can lead to severe long-term financial and reputational damage.

The solution to this is really clear: employees must recognise they are the first line of defence against social engineering threats, and to support this undertake regular cybersecurity awareness training ensuring their knowledge stays current, thus greatly reducing the chances of a successful security breach.

With our innovative and interactive security awareness platform, you can train your employees to identify and respond to cybersecurity threats through fun, engaging, user-friendly content.Our platform helps pinpoint vulnerabilities, promote ongoing cybersecurity awareness, and encourage lasting behavioural change.Available in multiple languages, our platform is designed for accessibility and impact.

Are you ready to defend against social engineering attacks? Sign up for a free 28-day trial and empower your employees with practical cybersecurity training that protect against both digital and physical social engineering.

How to protect your organisation from social engineering

To effectively protect against social engineering attacks, there are 4 key steps an organisation can take to raise employee awareness and protect their business from a cyber security breach.

• Awareness and training: Train employees to recognise suspicious situations and familiarise them with the tactics used by social engineers. A security awareness training programme ensures employees know how to respond appropriately.
• Security procedures: Implementing robust security policies, such as visitor protocols, ID cards, visitor passes etc allows us to control who has access to the premises at all times.
• Technological security measures: Use tools like phishing filters, antivirus software, and multi-factor authentication (MFA) to minimise the risk of attacks.
• Incident Response Plan: Develop a vigorous incident response plan to quickly address and mitigate breaches.

Security awareness training as part of your security strategy

When we raise employee awareness by regularly conducting social engineering tests, we can minimise cybersecurity risks. You can assess and monitor how well your team can identify threats, uncover weak spots within your organisation, and strengthen your defences against future attacks.

Are you ready to make your organisation more resilient against cybercriminals?

Request a free trial account today!