From fake job postings to fake candidates, it’s clear the job market has changed in the past few years. Finding a job ad that sparks your interest is now only half the battle — the other half is making sure it’s not a scam. I see three or four LinkedIn posts about job searches and applications gone wrong every day. I’ve read tales of recruiter impersonations, postings for roles that don’t exist, and ads that demand money in order to apply.

Hackers don’t always need malware or harvested credentials to break into systems and accounts. Why bother with technical hacks when bad actors can trick people into getting what they want? From deepfake video calls impersonating friends or relatives to perfectly cloned login portals that steal credentials in real-time, social engineering scams are more convincing than ever. In fact, social engineering now accounts for 70 to 90% of cyber attacks.

AI is advancing at lightning speed, but it’s also raising some big questions, especially when it comes to security. The latest AI making headlines is DeepSeek, a Chinese startup that’s shaking up the game with its cost-efficient, high-performing models. But it’s also raising red flags for cybersecurity pros. DeepSeek overnight became a top contender, mostly driven by curiosity.

Since December 16, 2024, Arctic Wolf has observed increased activity in a social engineering campaign associated with Black Basta ransomware. In this campaign, threat actors were observed using Microsoft Quick Assist and Teams to impersonate IT personnel and engage in malicious activities upon contacting victims. This is a continuation of the Black Basta campaign we reported on in a security bulletin sent in June 2024.

The Kroll Security Operations Center (SOC) has recently detected and remediated a trend of incidents that involved socially engineering a victim into pasting a PowerShell script into the “Run” command window to begin a compromise. These incidents have typically begun with the victim user attempting to find “YouTube to mp3” converters, or similar, then being redirected to the malicious webpages.

A social engineering attack is a form of cybersecurity attack where attackers approach individuals and psychologically manipulate them into divulging sensitive information or performing actions that compromise security. Unlike traditional hacking methods that exploit system vulnerabilities, social engineering preys on human psychology, using the likes of deceit, urgency or trust to bypass defenses.

Over a decade ago, I noticed that social engineering was the primary cause for all malicious hacking. It has been that way since the beginning of computers, but it took me about half of my 36-year career to realize it. At the time, I think everyone in cybersecurity knew social engineering was a big part of why hackers and their malware programs were so successful, but no one really knew how big.

When it comes to data loss, the biggest yet common dangers these days come from within the organization, and social engineering and insider threats are one of the main reasons. This shows that human mistakes are just as risky as external attacks. In this piece, you’ll see how social engineering and insider threats result in data loss. In addition to that, you’ll look at real examples to understand the seriousness of such threats and talk about steps companies can take to protect themselves.