Social engineering attacks are on the rise.
A new twist on an old attack is an advanced social engineering attack, targeting customers that are connected to their financial institution via social media. Attackers leverage social media to gather reconnaissance information on a customer, then contact the customer while posing as the financial institution.
The attacker’s objective is to convince the customer that their online banking account has been compromised and the customer needs to change their online banking password to a “temporary” password and provide the MFA (multifactor authentication) code. Once successful, this attack will give the attacker full access to the customer’s online banking account, which has and will lead to a significant loss of customer funds.
The attacker starts by:
- Using recon from a financial institution’s Facebook page. Individuals who “like” the financial institution’s posts appear to be the attackers’ primary targets, giving the attacker a probable customer target list.
- The attacker then begins gathering details about the potential customer and creating their own social profile.
- The attacker utilizes the dark web and internet search resources for potentially compromised personally identifiable information (PII) for the customer, including Social Security Number (SSN) and any other account numbers from previous compromises.
Once the attacker has a important info on the potential customer:
- The attacker may make some innocuous calls to the financial institution to verify that the person is indeed a customer at the financial institution.
- Once verified, the attacker plans an advanced social engineering attack on the customer.
- The attacker pulls up the financial institution’s online banking webpage and calls the customer.
- The attacker spoofs the financial institution’s phone number to appear official.
- The attacker convinces the customer that their online banking account has been compromised, asking the customer to then browse to the financial institution’s online banking portal.
- The attacker may use the customer’s previously obtained information to convince them that they are official.
- The customer is directed to the financial institution’s website and asked by the attacker to reset their password to something simple, like “password1234”. The customer might tell them that they do not want their password set to that. The attacker states they understand that, and this password reset is only temporary. Victims stated that the social engineers are very convincing and have even been able to convince the victims to provide the attackers with the resulting MFA authorization code, where needed.
- Once the password is reset, the attacker has access to the customer’s account and can drain customer funds in various ways.
We know this all sounds rather sci-fi and complex, and the easiest way we can put this into context is to always be wary of scams (such as social media scams, lottery scams, financial scams, you name it). Legitimate organizations won’t call, email, or text to ask for your personal information, like your Social Security, bank account, or credit card numbers. We encourage you to set up online banking alerts that can notify you of any large transactions from your accounts (which could be a red flag) or alert you to password resets. It’s also important to review social media privacy settings and consider restricting which users can see who “likes” or comments on social media posts.
One last great tip.
Stop and talk to someone you trust. Before you do anything else, tell someone — a friend, a family member, a neighbor — what happened. Talking about it could help you realize it’s a scam.
Written by:
Buzz Hillestad, SVP Information Security Consultant/Director of DFIR – SBS CyberSecurity, LLC
