Christina Lekati

Targeting, profiling, and weaponizing psychology against key individuals within organizations has started becoming a go-to methodology employed by cybercriminals and social engineers. It is a low-cost, low-risk and highly successful approach used to infiltrate organizations in the public and private sectors, steal sensitive information, recruit insiders, and help threat actors acquire illicit access to assets and systems.

We have been observing threat actors performing thorough reconnaissance on targets, building relationships with them online or offline, and actively exploiting or recruiting them. This talk provides insights into the mechanisms and the methodology of today's targeted social engineering attacks and weaponized psychology. It discusses how attackers tailor their approach in order to compromise specific people in key positions. The tricks they use to build trust and elicit information that assist them in strategizing, initiating, or delivering an attack.

In addition to the modus operandi of these attacks, the presentation will discuss the lessons learned and the defence mechanisms we can employ to detect and deter targeted social engineering attacks. Do individuals that have privileged access to information or systems require a more carefully planned security strategy? What do they need to know? What can we, the professionals in security positions do to ensure the safety of those individuals and our organizations but also where does our responsibility end?

The presentation will include real-life case studies from current threat intelligence.