Be suspicious of unsolicited phone calls or email messages from individuals asking about personal information. If you are unsure whether an email request is legitimate, try to verify it by contacting the company directly. Do not use contact information provided on a website connected to the request; instead, check previous statements for contact information.

Phishing is a form of social engineering. Phishing attacks use email or malicious websites to solicit personal information by posing as a trustworthy organization. For example, an attacker may send email seemingly from a reputable credit card company or financial institution that requests account information, often suggesting that there is a problem. When users respond […]

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In a social engineering attack, an attacker uses human interaction (social skills) to obtain or compromise information about an organization or its computer systems. An attacker may seem unassuming and respectable, possibly claiming to be a new employee, repair person, or researcher and even offering credentials to support that identity. However, by asking questions, he […]

Early 2019 marks the fifteenth anniversary of Facebook’s launch. Since the winter of 2004, social media has come a long way, becoming deeply ingrained in the live of billions of people worldwide. According to the Pew Research Center, 73 percent of Americans used YouTube in 2018 and 68 percent were on Facebook. Even smaller network […]

Visiting a website for the first time, perhaps via an email link? Look for the tell-tale signs of phishing. These include misspellings and grammatical mistakes on the page, aggressive advertising and especially unusual and complex URLs. If you see some or all of them, leave the page immediately.