http://www.csoonline.com/article/690167/social-engineering-attacks-costly-for-business By Joan Goodchild Senior Editor CSO September 21, 2011 Social engineering attacks are widespread, frequent and cost organizations thousands of dollars annually according to new research from security firm Check Point Software Technologies. A survey of 850 IT and security professionals located in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, Australia and New Zealand found almost half, 48 percent, had been victims of social engineering and had experienced 25 or more attacks in the past two years. Social engineering attacks cost victims an average of $25,000 - $100,000 per security incident, the report states. "Socially-engineered attacks traditionally target people with an implied knowledge or access to sensitive information," according to a statement from Check Point on the survey. "Hackers today leverage a variety of techniques and social networking applications to gather personal and professional information about an individual in order to find the weakest link in the organization." Among those surveyed, 86 percent recognize social engineering as a growing concern, with the majority of respondents, 51 percent, citing financial gain as the primary motivation of attacks, followed by competitive advantage and revenge. [...] _____________________________________________________________ Register now for the #HITB2011KUL - Asia's premier deep-knowledge network security event now in it's 9th year! http://conference.hitb.org/hitbsecconf2011kul/Received on Wed Sep 21 2011 - 22:51:59 PDT
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