Amy Spriggs, director of Marketing Strategy for Tomorrow’s Technology Today, speaks about cybersecurity at the Real American Sunrise breakfast at the Veterans Memorial Civic and Convention Center.
Dean Brown | The Lima News
LIMA — Amy Spriggs, Director of Marketing Strategy at Tomorrow’s Technology Today started her presentation at the Chamber’s Great American Breakfast with some questions: “Out of 376.4 million emails sent per day, what is the percentage of cybercrimes that start with emails? Out of 100 people, how many will click on a malicious link?”
The answer to the first question is 91% of cybercrimes start with an email. The answer to the second question in 80 out of 100 will click on a malicious link.
October is “Cybersecurity Awareness Month.” The internet is a fast-changing world. The types of cyber threats at the beginning of the month may evolve into something different, so it is important to be educated about what is happening on the web.
“You have to keep your proper protection in place at your workplace, but you also have to make sure individuals in your organization are trained regularly because it does change every day. Every single day we have new things coming at us when it comes to cyber threats,” Spriggs said.
Social engineering is the manipulation of people in order to get access to confidential information. Catfishing is social engineering. It is one of the easiest ways for criminals to get your information.
Catfishing is the act of manipulating a person online into sending money or giving up personal information to the catfish. A catfish often impersonates attractive people to lure victims into their trap.
There are three types of fishing. All of them have one thing in common – they have great bait. Spearfishing is when someone impersonates someone that you trust. Whaling occurs when an attacker utilizes spearfishing methods to go after a large, high-profile target. Clone fishing uses a legitimate or previously sent email that contains attachments or links. The clone is a near copy to the original where the attachments or links are replaced with malware or a virus. The email is typically spoofed to appear like it is being sent by the original sender and will claim it is a simple re-send.
Spriggs offers some advice to individuals who want to keep their personal information private, “I would say just don’t click on the links. Don’t fill out the social engineering forms on social media. Everyone wants to know what character they’d be in Game of Thrones or whatever. You know who you most align with. You don’t need to click on that survey. When you post information about my favorite color, my favorite car, my first car, my child’s name, that information is often used in passwords or it’s used to socially engineer and pretend to be you. So it’s really about making sure you keep your personal information personal and be very mindful of what you’re clicking on and what you’re posting.”
Reach Dean Brown at 567-242-0409
