Security expert stresses the importance of thorough employee education and training

According to one security expert, the biggest security threat in 2013 will not be from hackers or robbers, but from social engineers.

Social engineering has quickly become the fastest growing threat to information security in the last four years, taking advantage of the lack of awareness among non-IT employees. Often, these professionals find themselves unprepared for the finely-tuned techniques used by this brand of criminal. Scam artists may call them, posing as an IT department employee. All it takes is for the scammer to name the person’s boss to gain the person’s trust.

Social engineers do their research; research on the company, research on individual employees. The only way to really combat these methods is to educate all employees who hold the keys to secure information how to spot these scam artists and how to respond to an attempted breach event.

Original article by Hamish Barwick.
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