Web 3.0 – the new target for social engineering and phishing attacks

The defining aspects of Web 3.0 offer interesting insight into the various types of cyberattacks that could accompany it, as cybercriminals are always on the lookout for new profitable opportunities.

Web 3.0 is a general term for emerging technologies such as cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology, distributed applications, and distributed file storage. Cisco researchers recently hypothesized what it takes to secure Web 3.0 applications, infrastructure, and technologies.

Among the predictions is one in which high expectations are placed by the threat actors. It is the assumption that cybercriminals will find new ways of phishing or social engineering aimed at disconnecting users from the content of their cryptocurrency exchanges. The past has already shown examples of cybercriminal activities focused on defrauding victims of their valuable cryptocurrencies, including token presales, crypto mining, buying fake mining equipment and more. As cryptocurrency wallets become more common, expect cybercriminals to focus their energies on analyzing how cryptocurrency wallets work, transfers, and more. zero-day attacks.

While many businesses currently don’t see a concrete use case that requires them to participate in Web 3.0, the Metaverse, etc., it’s only a matter of time before the money-making opportunities with this new dimension of the Web is becoming commonplace. Until then, social engineering and phishing will continue to exist in the “real world” and will continue to evolve at a rapid pace. Therefore, it is necessary for companies to implement security controls that include ongoing security training for their users. This can increase the vigilance of each user, so that they draw the right conclusions when interacting with potentially malicious content in emails and on the Internet in general.

Security awareness training to protect against social engineering

The most effective way to proactively prevent this type of attack is to educate employees about security. The implementation of security awareness training, as offered by KnowBe4, can form the basis for this. Basically, an attempt is made to test the attentiveness of employees using simulated phishing emails. The aim of the training is to achieve increased awareness of the dangers and recognition of such attacks.

Internal training must be repeated regularly and the results must be stored and analyzed on a platform in order to deepen the content and successfully continue the future learning process. The number of successful phishing attacks against the company can be significantly reduced by such training and, in addition to technical security options, employees can be trained and used as “human firewalls”.

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