6 Things Parents Must Know About Pretexting | A Parental Guide

The Internet is called the hub of modernity. Advanced technology carries much entertainment for children. While kids spend most of their time using social media, listening to music, and playing online video games. These interactions make their connections strong with their peers and folks. But sadly, some perils come up with social media interaction. A kid using social media without guidance is more vulnerable than an adult as the predators can approach them more conveniently.

Kids get attracted to people who share the same interests. Parents should monitor their children's social activities with the use of the best parental control app. Many cybercriminals search tabs to hunt their next prey, mostly on social media. This type of crime directly attacks humans' psychology.

• In this article, we are going to know:
• What is a pretexting attack?
• What can it do?
• Ways of pretexting attacks?

But before indulging in the pretexting of social engineering, let's find where the method comes from:

Social Engineering - What's it?

The exploitation of human psychology uses different tactics and tricks rather than employing the technicalities of hacking.

Social engineering has been ascertained as a profitable way for an online predator to "get inside." Once a social engineer has a trusted kid's password, he can use that password to log in and obtain sensitive data and information from their accounts. The social media child predators access the contacts of the target person and can use them for illegal help.

Social engineers attack human nature to take advantage and prey on their fears, greed, desires, curiosity, etc. They work over their target user's email, social media profiles, systems, and cell phones.

Kinds of Social Engineering:

The kinds of social engineering include:

• Pretexting attack
• Phishing attack
• Baiting attack
• Vishing attack

Pretexting Attack - What is it?

Pretexting in cyber security is a most popular social engineering attack, which psychologically grooms an individual or group into performing acts or disclosing intimate details. The assaulter creates a scenario to encounter the prey and convince them to reveal beneficial information. it is also known as the "Human Hacker."

Pretexting Attack - What Can It Do?

It depends diligently on an attacker (the pretext) forming a persuasive and compelling scenario or identity to defraud people by uncovering exposed details. They can use the information to possess the victim in different cyber attacks.

The pretexting attacker unfolds the communication through different tactics, including asking for sensitive information (passcode, email, credit card number). The popular way of frauding is known as pretexting.

Two Most Famous Ways of Pretexting Attack:

It occurs in many ways, but the most probable ways are:

Pretexting Attack - On Phone:

The criminal might call the trusted person of the user and pretend to be his fellow and ask for different information about the user. Parental monitoring software would be best to avoid the risk of being trapped by a pretext.

Pretexting Attack - Online:

Social media platforms have made the pretexting cyber security attacks easier to conduct. Nowadays, attackers go to their target users' social media accounts to attain more information about them. A social application like Facebook and LinkedIn contains roughly all the life history of their account holders to get a job. They gather plenty of information to have another attack.

These attackers also use phishing, pretexting, vishing social engineering attacks to target the lures (e.g., favorite actors, artists, music, politics). And it can tempt them to click on ransomware-laced extensions. Moreover, they send strange messages to their target. Parents can use the SMS tracker app to find these inappropriate messages.

6 Things Parents Should Know About Pretexting:

Parents must know all the considerations on Online space to mark their kids safe and protected.

What does a pretexting attack do?

We are going to reveal everything you need to know about Pretexting and social engineering attacks here in this section:

Personation:

Someone who imitates the manner and behavior of another person is known as personation. Personation is one of the most popular tactics for pretexting attacks. The attacker deceives their targets and makes attacks more likely to prosper by pretending to be the most trusted relation, i.e. folk, colleague, peer, boss, mother, or father. They manipulate their target to get access to the systems or accounts.

Access your Contacts:

The online predator hacks phone contacts or manages to find your email and password. In that case, they have access to the users' contact lists and other information. The users who have a single password for all their accounts provide access to their social media profiles unwillingly. The attackers sent a message to your trusted person. The message can be like this:

Read Also: Can Kids Bypass Parental Controls? A Parental Guide

We have found that your bank account has been deactivated, and we want to aid you in re-activating it.

We observed problems in your customer information services, and we want to help you make it fine.

We noticed a log into your profile from a different location, and we want to support you to reset your PIN.

Parents must track their kids' text messages using the SMS tracker app. And they should guide their kids not to click on malicious attachments. Tell them if they receive something inappropriate, ask their parents first about it.

Undesirable Help:

The exploiter can contact the company's camouflage, offering problem-solving services and unlink tech aid scam. You assume that you might not be skilled enough in their work string and provide credentials to access your device and account.

Raised Emotions:

The more grumpy we are, the more possible we will place our security down. Online predators are great at boosting sentiments like excitement, fear, anger, trinket, shame, or sadness. In your online dealings, think about the cause of these active spurs before acting on them.

The hacker might pretend to be an agent of cyber security and demand money from kids afraid of being exposed.

Unidentified Sender ID:

The technocrat uses unknown or different identities and profiles to attack their target users. Suppose you are doubtful about the sender's profile and they are not providing any authentic way to prove their identity. In that case, it indicates that they are not worthy to be trusted.

Using parental control permits you to find the person's identity by sending messages and malicious links privately.

Malicious Links and Attachments:

Sometimes phishing links are used with pretexting tactics to trap the users into revealing sensitive information. Don't enter your credentials into the websites opened through a direct link sent by someone, even if it looks authentic.

Bonus:

Researchers have proved that humans are the most fragile link for security systems. To mitigate this weakness, parents have to use the best android parental control app. The most effective countermeasure to reduce the risk of being trapped by pretexting attacks is to recognize the problem earlier and respond appropriately.

The safety and security of kids and teens rely upon parents, as the kids are most vulnerable. The SMS tracker app allows you to read text messages received by any non-identical senders. Furthermore, it allows you to review the history of text messages transmitted by the target and predator. The parents can locate their kids using a GPS location tracker. A GPS location tracker enables you to view your kids' previous locations to have a better eye on their outside activities.

Conclusion:

Pretexting attacks are good at targeting the emotions and mistakes of human beings. We have many institutes raising awareness about the security of kids. Further, we have the best parental control software helping parents to identify the problem earlier to avoid radical consequences.

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