Social Engineering and Ransomware, Still the Top Threats in CyberSecurity Space, Why and How to Avoid?

Abstract

Social engineering and ransomware have been around for many years in the industry across sectors including manufacturing, technology and finance. The motive behind these techniques and attacks have always been gaining access to systems, data especially PII, MNPI. Most of these attacks were sponsored by nations at first, due to the amount of resources and effort needed at scale but it has now evolved into the top cybersecurity threats plaguing industries. In spite of the presence of various cybersecurity threats, evolving risk landscape, Social engineering and ransomware topping the charts is a mystery to professionals working outside of the security domain. This article aims at understanding the context behind these techniques and attacks, providing real time examples driving the relation between social engineering and Ransomware attacks, methods that are tried and tested, used by firms in the real world that has helped bring the numbers and frequency of these attacks down. This article also brings perspective from the various thought leaders, consulting firms working in Cybersecurity space.