Brian Henger - Psychological Warfare: How Cyber Criminals Mess With Your Mind

Psychological WarfareHow Cyber Criminals Mess with People’s Minds

Agenda

• 2016 Threat outlook

• Evolution of online advertising tactics

• What cyber criminals find appealing about advertising and profiling

• How advertisers and cyber criminals have worked together in the past

• What psychological tactics are used by cyber criminals in real world attacks

• How to protect yourself from psychological attacks

• About us

• Another bit of information

• Clickbait used to only be used for shady websites

• Sensational titles are really old

• Clickbait is seen all over the internet

• Advertising has been on the forefront of psychological manipulation

Introduction to Advertising Evolution

Leveraging Advertising for Nefarious Purposes

• The online ad business is complex, and abuse is easy

• Understanding and targeting specific demographics

Cyber Criminals and Advertisers Work Together

• Potentially Unwanted Programs

• Scammers

Classic Advertising Tactics Used By Criminals

• Target identification

• Effective attacks

• Targeted attacks

Malvertising, Real-Time Bidding and Exploit Kits

• Malicious advertising has exploded in the past year

• Major websites are affected (Yahoo.com, Huffington Post, Daily Motion, etc.)

• RTB allows for anyone to jump in the advertising chain at low cost

• You only pay for what you use: RTB is cost effective

Watering Hole Attacks and Exploits

• What are watering hole attacks?

• Exploits can use targeting code

Social Networking Attacks and Clickbait

• Social networking attacks

• Modern clickbait is very different

Scams and Social Engineering at Work

• Scams can be simple yet effective

• Personalized scams are more effective, reach more victims

Ransomware

• What is Ransomware?

• Government Ransomware

• Law Enforcement

• Child Pornography

• Assumed Guilt

Smart Phones, Not Necessarily Smart Users

• Phishing scams work really well on mobile

• Free apps used as bait

• Malvertising and scams on the rise

Spear Phishing and Breaches

• What is Spear Phishing?

• Stolen PII from Breaches

How To Protect Your Users

Traditional approach

CommonSense

Anonymize

Data Use the Right

Software / Hardware

Limited Rights

Privacy Settings

Recap

• Cyber attacks haven’t changed much

• Psychological attacks are increasing

• Use layered protection

• Don’t give them any power

Crushes malware. Restores confidence.

Founded in 2008, 350+ employees

focused on the “Infection

Landscape.”

Malwarebytes is the global standard

for complete malware removal.

Malwarebytes’ agile research

team keeps our customers in the

fight against malware.

We don’t just remove threats,

we prevent them—stopping data breaches

before they happen.

Trusted by Millions

10,000Businessesprotected

750,000,000IT hours saved

605,000Threats blocked

every hour

280,000,000Endpoints protected

Advanced Threat Prevention and Automated Threat Removal

• Blocks zero-day malware

• Stops exploit attacks

• Detects unprotected systems

• Scalable threat prevention

• Easy management

• Remediates malware thoroughly

• Reduces downtime drastically

• Works proactively, not reactively

• Hunts for malware

• Enhances existing investments

Visit us at our table to learn more.