You visit a website that promises to give you something valuable, such as free games on Steam or free gold in World of Warcraft.

You receive a message on Facebook or any other social website from a user that claims to be an official Facebook account, asking you to send your password to authenticate yourself.

You receive an email that claims to be from your bank, directing you to a fake bank website with a very similar-looking URL and asking you to fill in your password.

Here are some examples of social engineering: Some users hand their passwords over readily. Phishing is a commonly known form of social engineering - essentially, the attacker impersonates someone and asks for your password. Use a decent antivirus program, keep your software updated, and avoid downloading untrustworthy software.Īttackers also commonly use social engineering tricks to access your accounts. The tool may be malicious, capturing your game password and sending it to the attacker over the Internet. For example, you may download a third-party tool for an online game. However, they can also arrive disguised in other software. Such malware can arrive via exploits - for example, if you’re using an outdated version of Java, as most computers on the Internet are, you can be compromised through a Java applet on a web page. They then send this data to an attacker over the Internet. They’re often used to capture sensitive data like credit card numbers, online banking passwords, and other account credentials. Keyloggers are malicious pieces of software that can run in the background, logging every key stroke you make. You should use different passwords everywhere - a password manager can help with this. If you reuse passwords and one company slips up, all your accounts will be at risk. However good you are at securing your passwords, you can’t control how well the services you use secure your passwords. Reusing a password for your email account puts you even more at risk, as your email account could be used to reset all your other passwords if an attacker gained access to it. Attackers can try these email address, username, and passwords combinations on other websites and gain access to many accounts. Databases of leaked passwords along with usernames and email addresses are readily accessible online. Many websites - even big, well-known ones like LinkedIn and eHarmony - have had their password databases leaked over the past few years. Some people may even use the same password for every account they use. Many people - maybe even most people - reuse passwords for different accounts. Reusing Passwords, Especially Leaked Ones

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