Fraud Management & Cybercrime , Social Engineering
How Account Takeovers Subvert Victims' Social Networks
Agari's Markus Jakobsson Describes Account Takeover Defenses
Phishing attacks, spoofing someone's email address or phone number, and running CEO fraud scams - aka business email compromise - are typically not technically sophisticated attacks. But attackers rarely bother with technical sophistication when easy social engineering schemes, such as "hacking" a victim's social network and using it against them, can give them what they want, says Markus Jakobsson, chief scientist at the cybersecurity firm Agari.
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And it should come as no surprise, he says, that account takeover attacks, in particular, have been increasing as attackers double down on low-cost, high-impact strategies for perpetrating fraud.
In a video interview at RSA Conference 2018, Jakobsson discusses:
- The rise of account takeover incidents;
- Why attackers favor account takeovers;
- Examples of how these attacks are launched and why they can be so successful.
Jakobsson is chief scientist at Agari, CTO of ZapFraud and a technical advisory board member for Stealth Security. He has more than 20 years of experience as a security researcher and scientist studying phishing, crimeware and mobile security at such organizations as PayPal, Palo Alto Research Center - PARC - and RSA Security.
