October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month. CBM Technology is honoring Cyber Security Awareness Month with a string of articles educating the business community about Cyber Security and adding a little Halloween fun! We hope that you learn something and apply some of it to protect your business.
Types of Cyber Creatures
1. Social Engineering – Vampire Clans
Social Engineering is a psychological manipulation of people to trick people into performing actions or sharing confidential information. This can happen in social media such as Facebook, emails or even phone calls. They can use this information to crack passwords, transfer large sums of money or steal credit card information.
a. Phishing Vampire
The stalker will put out bait to try to suck information out of you such as usernames, passwords, credit card details and money. Phishing Vampires typically disguise themselves as someone trustworthy via email. Once they latch on, they will suck you dry.
b. Spear Phishing Dracula
Dracula is like the Phishing Vampire; however, he likes to take his time and target high-value people who have authority in a business such as the CEO or CFO. Via email, he will gain your trust and he will suck you dry through your fingers by convincing you to authorize transfers of large sums of money. Sounds like an easy trap, but modern-day Dracula can be very convincing and deceiving.
2. Creepy Crawler Malware
Malware is an encompassing term that covers a variety of creepy crawlers such as Trojans, viruses, and worms. Their only intent is to steal your blood (data) or eat (destroy) your data. They can come through email attachments, downloads from websites or software vulnerabilities. They can multiply and spread throughout your network.
3. Irish Ransomware Leprechaun
The leprechaun will trick you to install software that will encrypt all your files in ransom for gold (BitCoins). If the leprechaun does not get me gold from you, you will not get your data back.
4. MS13 Zombies’ Drive-By Downloads
These MS13 Zombies will hide undisturbed until you go to a website or click on an ad (bad or good) to click on an unsuspecting link to download a program to shoot your computer up. They will eat your brains after it is all done.
5. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
From cyber spaceships, the killer tomatoes will do a brute force attack on your passwords. Smashing your computer systems with different types of tomatoes (passwords) until it gets through. Every now and then, they will work with the Vampire Clans to strategically guess your passwords through social engineering.
6. The Haunting of Unpatched Software
Inside your house (computer), if you don’t maintain and care for it by updating operating systems and software, the house will become haunted and let the ghosts come in to steal information or cause havoc so you can’t sleep (do work).
7. Rogue Software Witch
A rogue witch will stir the pot of eyeballs and fingers that smells like apples while you are browsing websites. When you visit her site, the witch will show you an apple to trick you into believing that you need it to stay secure or that you have some rotten apples on your computer that needs to be removed. You believe it and click to accept the apples; the witch will unleash the pot of eyeballs and fingers to steal your information or boil your computer.
8. Internal Gremlins
Cyber monsters don’t always come from the dark, misty outside, they can also be lurking inside. Some of your employees may turn into disgruntled and uncaring gremlins or they can unknowingly or accidentally turn into gremlins. These gremlins can cause a crazy amount of havoc by opening doors to let the cyber monsters in, deleting/changing files that won’t be discovered for ages or being nosey and stealing information.
Now you have been warned. Creepy cyber monsters are very real and cause mayhem all the time. You have just as much of a chance getting hit by cyber monsters as getting free candy.
Stay tuned for more tips and tricks for Cyber Security Awareness