PLDT Social Engineering
CYBERCRIMINALS have been employing more sophisticated techniques in stealing their victims’ valuable information.
While they may use different platforms or strategies to run their modus, PLDT and its wireless unit Smart Communications Inc. have identified “social engineering” as the go-to game plan of malicious actors on the internet.
“Cybercriminals, when interacting with potential victims, use a variety of psychological manipulation to trick the public into sharing sensitive data like passwords or personal information that hackers can use to log into the victim’s various accounts including digital wallets,” Angel Redoble, first vice president and chief information security officer of the PLDT Group, explained.
Social Engineering: What You Need to Know to Stay Resilient
PLDT and Smart’s Cyber Security Operations Group likens social engineering to the budol-budol modus of the 1990s where criminals would often concoct lies or pretend to be a personal acquaintance to coax the victim into handing over his or her money or valuables.
Fast-forward to the new millennium and fraudsters have moved to different platforms to run their criminal activities.
It started with phishing, a type of social engineering where criminals send fraudulent emails with links to malicious sites. Often masked as promos or notices from legitimate companies, victims are tricked into clicking the link which directs them to a website that asks for their personal data.
Phishing activities have since found their way into other channels where fraudsters use voice calls or vishing, text messages or smishing and QR codes or quishing to deceive their victims.
Quoting data from Cybersecurity Ventures, the PLDT Group’s CSOG said that cybercrime will cost the world more than $10 trillion annually in 2025, making the illicit industry more profitable than cross-border trade of illegal drugs.
Its impact is so great that if cybercrime were a country, data from Cybersecurity Ventures estimate that it will be the world’s third-largest economy after the United States and China.
PLDT Social Engineering
