Criminals are increasingly using social engineering to collect personal data from social networking websites, data breaches and other sources according to McAfee.
Its recently released McAfee Security Journal threat report revealed that international experts and McAfee's Avert Labs saw the growing use of social engineering techniques, exploiting human mistakes and weakness rather than having to beat technology.
The Security Journal outlined four major global trends: that the depth of personalised attacks from social networking data would increase, socially-engineered spam would explode in numbers, stock scams would rise and there would be more malicious software which posed as security applications from trusted vendors.
"Cybercriminals are crafting attacks that are virtually impossible for computer users to identify," said Jeff Green, vice president at McAfee Avert Labs. "Phishing scams, e-mail attacks, Trojan horses, and other attacks are so personalised that even someone with the most watchful eye could fall for a carefully socially engineered trap."
As well as updating security technology, McAfee advised that users practiced safe computing and surfing, and to be wary about "too good to be true" offers that came through emails, IMs or social networking messages.
Green added: "It's an easy way for cybercrooks to make money and for spies to steal sensitive data."
McAfee said that in the last six months, scammers have increasingly targeted emotion and curiosity in attempts to steal information, such as with the Olympics, natural disasters and the US presidential election.
-
Workday expands EMEA VAR ecosystem with HR Path UK&I partnershipNews The partnership will see HR Path directly sell Workday solutions to SMBs across Scotland and Ireland
-
Demand for AI-savvy devs is surging, but enterprises can't fill vacanciesNews Hiring is shifting away from traditional software development toward specialized roles to integrate, govern, and scale AI systems
-
‘They risk damaging confidence’: A Canadian health board outraged staff with phishing tests offering paid leave – experts say it shows why you need to be careful with cyber awareness campaignsNews Phishing tests require a delicate touch, emulating realism while not “exploiting goodwill”
-
Hackers are capitalizing on AI hype to ramp up social engineering attacks – and they're using big brands like Anthropic, OpenAI, and DeepSeek as ‘bait’ to lure victimsNews Microsoft says cyber criminals are impersonating popular AI platforms to deliver malware
-
Two US nationals sentenced for role in prolific fake worker laptop farmsNews The Americans were raising money for the North Korean regime by allowing fake IT workers to appear as legitimate US-based employees
-
Beware of emails threatening a code of conduct review
News A widespread phishing campaign has targeted tens of thousands of employees
-
Microsoft and NCSC issue alerts over hacker campaigns targeting WhatsApp, Signal messaging appsNews Microsoft warns about a sophisticated attack that starts with WhatsApp messages, while the NCSC says such incidents are on the rise
-
Is your new hire an AI clone? Microsoft says North Korean hackers are using AI to impersonate job seekers and steal company secretsNews The groups are increasingly using face-changing or voice-changing software to make their fake identities more plausible
-
Google issues warning over ShinyHunters-branded vishing campaignsNews Related groups are stealing data through voice phishing and fake credential harvesting websites
-
Thousands of Microsoft Teams users are being targeted in a new phishing campaignNews Microsoft Teams users should be on the alert, according to researchers at Check Point
