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[Infographic] Social Engineering Fraud: Exploiting the Instinct to Trust

Written by Lowers & Associates | Mar 2, 2017 5:00:00 AM

[Infographic] Social Engineering Fraud: Exploiting the Instinct to Trust

by Lowers & Associates | March 02, 2017

One of the more pervasive human risks in modern organizations is fraud through “social engineering.” Social engineering fraudsters gain access to your most valuable assets by using deceitful tactics to turn trusted employees or partners into unwitting and unwilling accomplices. This occurs at a typical loss rate of $25k to $100k per incident. This stealthy crime can be very hard to detect because the accomplice is unaware of being complicit, giving the perpetrator time to escape.

IT and other business systems are run by humans who are susceptible to guile, inattention, flattery, and other forms of manipulation. Fraudsters learn about the people who run the business systems that they want to exploit, and work to gain just enough trust from them that they can learn a crucial piece of information that will allow them to pierce the security shield.

This new infographic summarizes the typical tactics of social engineering fraudsters, and outlines the steps organizations can take against them. Developing effective procedures to mitigate this risk not only improves crime prevention, but also crime detection in the event a fraudster breaks in.

Start developing a social engineering fraud mitigation program with these facts:

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Lowers & Associates provides comprehensive enterprise risk management solutions to organizations operating in high-risk, highly-regulated environments and organizations that value risk mitigation.
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