SOCIAL ENGINEERING
BY ROGER A. GRIMES, KNOWBE4
ILLUSTRATION PROVIDED BY ADOBE STOCK
IS EVIL CONTACTING YOUR CONTACT CENTER?
HOW TO DEFEND AGAINST HARM.
Contact centers are a prime target for social engineering criminals. Customer service representatives( CSRs) are common high-value targets as their main goal is to help customers resolve their problems as quickly as possible.
CSRs often have access to lots of data at their fingertips and are the easy touch points for customer data and transactions. Hackers know that if they can successfully socially engineer a CSR, they can likely get the“ keys to the kingdom.”
Remote, work-from-home employees( WFH) are likely to have a few more personal distractions than they would at a traditional, formal call center, making it easier for the social engineer to be successful. But formal contact center employees also face many distractions, like from colleagues, HR, and onsite activities.
Traditional social engineering scams against call centers can come in a variety of different scenarios. Some scammers are simply trying to get to customer data or take over the customers '
... CALL CENTERS AND THEIR EMPLOYEES ARE UNWITTINGLY INVOLVED IN MANY BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF FRAUD A YEAR. accounts. Some are looking to get access to the call center’ s databases and networks. And some are just looking to get free equipment and services.
In all, call centers and their employees are unwittingly involved in many billions of dollars of fraud a year. That’ s why it is critical to get a handle on this evil and banish it or at least close the door on it.
THE ATO SCAM
The most common scams are account takeovers( ATOs). These are where hackers try to take control of legitimate customers’ accounts and take advantage of that access to fraudulently steal something of value. 30 CONTACT CENTER PIPELINE