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| Picture by author |
Take a good look at the photo and try to figure out why I shot this picture with only one purpose: to write a blog about it.
We
are in a hotel. At the bottom of the screen there’s a staircase going down.
Above it there’s this warning sign: “Caution – watch your step”. How many
people have fallen down these stairs because they were looking at the
sign? It draws your attention, distracting your focus from the danger itself:
the stairs. You’ll walk into the pitfall with your eyes wide open. Literally.
Sometimes
security measures are abused to make you feel safe while you are in a dangerous
situation. For example, there are phishing emails that warn you about phishing.
If you click on the 'for more information' link, you will be taken to the
phishing information page of the real company. This can give you the false
sense of looking at a legitimate email. Because criminals wouldn’t point out
the existence of crime to you, would they? They are not going to give you a
clue that something could be wrong, they don't want you to think about that, do
they?
Cybercrime
is all about trust. If you can gain your victim’s trust, you’re in. You can gain
their trust by presenting yourself as a reliable party who, as an extra service,
warns you of dangers. In doing so, they sneak into your world and together you
look at the big bad world. That creates a bond. And with that, trust.
However,
that same email will undoubtedly contain another link, that will take you to a
fake website. Because the email seems so trustworthy, you are more likely to
click on that as well. Gotcha!
The
question remains: why on earth would they put a warning sign above a staircase?
That must have something to do with the American claim culture. “It’s very
unfortunate that you fell down the stairs, but hey, we warned you, so you can’t
sue us.” Everybody knows that you have to be careful with stairs – even without
a sign. Moreover, this was the only staircase in the hotel with a warning sign.
Someone must have fallen into the depths at that spot at some point, after
which this staircase was designated as a Dangerous Area.
And in the big bad world…
- messages 'on behalf of the government' are always good for building confidence.
- It is not a good idea to have your email hosted by an American company.
- AI leads to more paranoia.
- These cybercriminals got a taste of their own medicine.
- Europe has its own vulnerability database now.
- The European security organisation Enisa has been linked to the power outage in Spain and Portugal.
- You will have to take action again if you don’t want Meta to train their AI with your data.
- Cyber espionage is now a crime in the Netherlands. [DUTCH]
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