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THERE has been a staggering 188 per cent increase in cases of “human hacking” in Bahrain in the second quarter of the year, according to a new analysis.
“Human hacking” has been described as a type of con during which, instead of trying to gain unauthorised access to data in a system or computer, the hacker engages in old-fashioned espionage techniques that involve human interaction and prey on weaknesses in human psychology, such as helpfulness, curiosity – even greed.
Also known as social engineering, the modus operandi involves luring gullible users to share personal information such as bank account passwords or payment card details, or login details for social media accounts.
A total of 735,244 ‘phishing’ attacks was recorded from April to June by Kaspersky, though one of the largest IT security companies in the world did not offer any comparative statistics.
It added that with the onset of the holiday season and easing of Covid-19 travel restrictions, scamming activities targeting airline and booking services have shown a marked surge.
The number of attempts to open phishing pages related to booking and airline services in the first half of 2022 was 4,311 in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa region, according to the analysis.
“In the wrong hands, ‘human hacking’ opens doors to various malicious operations, such as money being stolen or corporate networks being compromised,” said researchers.
Phishing is a strong attack method as it is done on a large scale. By sending massive waves of emails under the name of legitimate institutions or promoting fake pages, malicious users increase their chances of success in their hunt for people’s credentials.
Phishers deploy a variety of tricks to bypass e-mail blocking and attract as many users as possible to their fake sites.
“Planning a vacation is not easy – people can spend weeks, even months, looking for the perfect place to stay and the tickets to get them there,” said Kaspersky security expert Mikhail Sytnik.
“Fraudsters use this to lure users that have grown tired of searching for great deals.
“After two years of flight restrictions imposed by the pandemic, travelling is back.
“But so are travel scams – with intensified scamming activity targeting users through fake booking and rental services.
“Such attacks are totally preventable, which is why we urge users to be sceptical about overly generous offers.
“If an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
Following are some tips to stay safe from scammers:
l Look at the address bar carefully before entering any sensitive information, such as your login details and password. If something is wrong with the URL – spelling, it doesn’t look like the original or it uses some special symbols instead of letters – do not enter anything on the site. If in doubt, check the certificate of the site by clicking on the lock icon to the left of the URL.
l Do not click on links that come from unknown sources – through e-mails, messaging apps or social networks.
l Do not visit the business’ official website if you see a giveaway offered in an e-mail or on social media by a travel company or an airline to confirm the giveaway exists. Also, check the links the giveaway ad leads you to, carefully.
raji@gdnmedia.bh
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