Many
of you may surprise to hear this but in most cyber security incidents it has
been found that they succeeded because victims have helped them first. Today I
am going to explain how a user may help cyber criminals.
Awareness: Social
Engineering attacks are one example where attacker successfully executes
attacks and victim couldn’t prevent it because of lack of
awareness of latest attack trends and their countermeasures. Today
knowledge should not limit to using a system; we all need to update our self
with the latest security trends and must be aware how to use a system
securely.
Ignorance: It is being said that “Real knowledge
is to know the extent of one's ignorance” and attackers work on same
principle to come inside your trusted boundary. Let me explain with one
example, it is advisable that user should change their passwords after certain
period of time. How many of us are following this? Similarly there are few set
of guidelines that one should follow while using this sophisticated system.
Rely: It’s
a human nature that we usually rely on someone very easily who care for us or
who think about us and most of the times we judge people in day to day
interactions but in an Internet platform these classic judgments methodology
are one of the soft and useful weapon of cyber criminals. Phishing attack is
one example which is executed by using two common human behaviors- Rely and
Ignorance. Don't rely too much on labels, for too often they are trap.
Finally,
I would like to say that Awareness is not expensive so do not
try Ignorance and must Rely on acquisition of
knowledge.
