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How Social Engineering Phishing Works: My Real-Life Encounter
Phishing attacks have become increasingly clever, blending AI technology with subtle psychological tricks to deceive even the most vigilant. Recently, I found myself at the receiving end of one such attempt — an elaborate social engineering ploy that nearly caught me off guard.
In this article, I’ll explain exactly how the attack worked, the underlying simple yet convincing tech, and, most importantly, practical tips to help you recognize and avoid falling for these traps.
This blog post was originally published on my website, “Ran The Builder.”
Social Engineering and Phishing
According to CyberArk, my workplace and a leading Cyber security company, social engineering is:
a manipulation technique aimed at tricking individuals into revealing sensitive information, carrying out actions they wouldn’t normally perform, or making decisions contrary to their usual behavior. Social engineering attacks are strategies used by malicious individuals to take advantage of human psychology and persuade people to compromise their security or privacy.
This is precisely what happened to me. The attacker did his best to gain my trust and trick me into visiting a fake website where I’d enter my bank credentials…
