Hacker Personas: The Impersonator

THE IMPERSONATOR

Today’s cybercriminals are masters at exploiting basic human trust and impersonators have unfortunately perfected this technique. Pretending to be someone else, these hackers rely on vulnerabilities to manipulate their victims into opening doors to systems or unwittingly sharing sensitive data such as passwords or banking details. What makes this type of cybercriminal a massive threat is their expert ability to hide in plain sight, often masking their true intentions behind seemingly innocuous requests or legitimate-looking websites.

Who Falls Victim to Impersonators?

Many users are growing more educated about their attacks, but impersonators are increasingly sophisticated, often hosting malicious content on legitimate sites. Impersonators leverage trusted brand names, and those who let their guard down can easily fall prey. Phishing attempts can slip through DNS and endpoint protection, which makes security awareness training a must-have tool. Case in point, recent impersonation attacks prove consequences can be costly