When there’s a lot at stake, it’s imperative to promote a strong culture of cybersecurity. This means taking the important steps in educating everyone about the types of security threats that are currently prominent and ensuring that everyone knows what to do to avoid becoming a victim of cybercrime – something that we already did previously through our blogs that defined what phishing is and what can be done to avoid becoming a victim.

After learning all about phishing, I would also like to mention how phishing attacks can be considered, at the end of the day – an emotional attack, making them even more dangerous because everyone can fall for it. It plays on our emotions and tricks us into doing something we wouldn’t normally do. It’s no surprise how Wikipedia defines it as “a form of social engineering where attackers deceive people into revealing social information.”

Social engineering’s main drivers are deception and manipulation. Threat actors – the bad guys in every cybercrime situation – deceive and manipulate victims, luring them into a trap. From here, victims are at their most vulnerable as bad actors will trick them into giving sensitive information, personal details, and money.

What’s concerning is how social engineering has become both easier and dangerous, with bad actors becoming more resourceful and creative in assuming their victim’s identity for fraudulent purposes, or in deceiving their victim to give financial resources or sensitive material through phishing attacks.

This being said, I hope we can continue being vigilant and alert in order to prevent the scam and to avoid falling for the bait! It is important to remember that one way of preventing phishing attacks is to know your emotions and create a right mindset.  The best defense against phishing is to use your critical thinking skills outwit the threat actor.  Ask yourself a few questions: 1- Is this new or odd or out of ordinary, 2- Is this sense of urgency out of character from the sender, and 3- Is this asking me to do something I have never done before?  Be skeptical, be safe!

Cybersecurity at Teleperformance

Privacy and information security must always be integrated and complementary to business processes.

At Teleperformance, a big chunk of my responsibility as a Chief Information Security Officer is to anticipate, recognize, assess, and react to foreseeable security gaps and risks. The main goal is to protect everyone within the Teleperformance ecosystem: the company itself, our clients, our partners, and our employees who drive the business. To do this, we constantly adapt to technology and constantly ensure that our organization adheres to international data privacy regulations.

Teleperformance has achieved global certification to ISO/IEC 27701 Privacy Information Management System (PIMS). This certification strengthens our organization’s privacy processes and demonstrates that we meet the privacy and information security requirements of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other data protection mandates.[1] This certification is also proof that we follow best practices of securing personal data.

Learn more about Teleperformance’s award-winning security by clicking here.

[1] “Safeguarding Personally Identifiable Information in an Increasingly Digital World,” slide 12. https://www.teleperformance.com/en-us/insights-list/white-papers/safeguarding-personally-identifiable-information-in-an-increasingly-digital-world/