Step 7: Understand the Human Factor

Software vulnerabilities succumb to exploitation. Cybercrime groups target human beings and our foolishness. Social engineering is the art of fooling people, and understanding it is one of the most important areas of cybersecurity. Many cyber exploits are internal in nature. Most cyberattacks are financially motivated. Hacktivism is the one notable exception. Hacktivists aren't motivated by money; they're motivated by social activism. The most effective way in was through deceiving the Trojan guards. Phishing involves the use of emails, text messages, social media posts, or websites to imitate trusted entities to acquire sensitive data or access from their targets. Phishing kits and punicode attacks make phishing easy as pie. Nonfungible tokens are records on blockchains, the kind of blockchains that record transactions on popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. Cyberattackers will often pretend to be people who work in non‐technical business people's organization.