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Scammers take advantage of people's trust by using modern technology, contacting them online, communicating on social networks, and offering fake deals or investments.
Fraudsters are not foolish people; to learn how to manipulate a victim's actions, they need to have sufficient knowledge of social engineering.
Social Engineering and Internet Scammers
Social engineering studies human behavior and the surrounding factors that influence it. In principle, it is not fraud, but scammers skillfully use it for fraudulent purposes to:
- influence victims through manipulation;
- make them disclose the information they need;
- coerce them into giving money;
- provoke actions they need.
Fraudsters often use internet resources to exert influence - these include social networks, messenger spam, SMS messages, and intrusive calls.
Armed with the knowledge and principles of social engineering, scammers, when attacking a victim, study their psychological state and behavior to understand if it's possible to extract confidential information. During the attack, the fraudster probes the victim, examines them, to find weaknesses and extract information to gain access to the user's financial resources.
Internet Scam Manipulations
Internet scam manipulations have the same schemes, and there are many different ways to influence a person. For example, so-called trash sites. These resources often contain simple and understandable information like recipes, household hacks, homemaking tips, and more.
Information is mixed with both truthful and fake content. Scrolling through such a feed, one might encounter aggressive advertising with a link, for example, about some terrible disease or information about a famous person.
The victim links their online data, and in the skillful hands of scammers, this information is used to start attacking the user by forcing them to navigate to fake sites.
Scammers also actively promote the theme of birthday presents from well-known brands. They send this information on social networks or messengers, offering to:
- follow a link to a survey;
- fill out a form;
- send notifications to acquaintances.
Naturally, no gifts are given, but scammers obtain personal data entered in surveys or forms.
How to Protect Against Social Engineering
To avoid becoming a victim of social engineering by scammers, you should follow some internet communication rules:
- do not click on suspicious links;
- do not react to aggressive advertising;
- block calls from unknown numbers, especially if they talk about money;
- set strong protection for logging into Messenger, social networks, banking.
To resist psychological manipulation, be vigilant, especially in phone conversations with strangers offering attractive promotional deals. Also, refrain from taking loans in microfinance organizations, do not fall for offers of easy and quick earnings, gifts, or participation in training.
Online Social Engineering Methods
Most people, considering themselves protected from scammers' influence, having studied a lot of information, believe they won't fall for scammers' tricks. However, they often fail to notice they are becoming victims of manipulation.
Constantly spending time on social networks, they encounter various messages, for example, where they are asked to:
- put a plus sign if they agree with the topic;
- spread a link to a page;
- invite friends or acquaintances to the site;
- participate in a social survey.
This is one of the social engineering methods – catching people on an emotional hook. Scammers rely on people reacting and responding to suggested topics or logging into sites. This allows scammers to collect personal information and later skillfully use it to commit fraudulent activities.
Social Engineering: How Not to Become a Victim
Participating in the aforementioned campaigns, flash mobs, surveys, and questionnaires, many do not realize that their personal data is filling the internet. A moment of surprise comes when scammers know information about a person without them realizing they allowed it to be spread on internet resources. People also often post personal information on their social media pages, including work location, marital status, and many photos.
To protect yourself you need to:
- limit access to your social media page;
- avoid posting personal information;
- do not share information about yourself with unknown people who contact you first on internet resources.
Types of Scammer Manipulations
All the listed types of scammer manipulations are well-known to most people, but the actions of social engineering help scammers often get away with it, carry out their scams, and deceive people.