10 Critical Tactics to Prevent Social Engineering Attacks in the Wake of Scattered Spider

Create Deep Defense from Social Engineering Attacks in 10 Steps

1. Employee Training and Awareness

This represents the most important element in preventing social engineering attacks. Cybersecurity professionals focus on three key pillars of data protection: people, processes, and technology. Notably, people are the most vulnerable link in this chain.

Train your staff on the specific tactics used by Scattered Spider to ensure they can recognize and respond to these unique threats. These should include:

• Help desk impersonation techniques
• Deepfakes and vishing (voice phishing) attempts
• Suspicious communications
• “Executive” outreach through spoofed channels

Test employees' ability to identify and report phishing attempts through controlled simulations, then use these results to tailor additional training.

2. Multi-Factor Authentication Enhancements

"MFA adds a critical layer of security. Even if credentials are phished, MFA can prevent unauthorized access."

Social engineering attacks may take advantage of security codes sent by text. Instead, use phishing-resistant MFA for more secure ways to verify your identity. Hardware security keys and push-based apps add extra protection, making it harder for scammers to get in, even if they trick someone into sharing a password.

Requiring MFA for all important apps and VPNs provides broad coverage, closing gaps that attackers might try to exploit. Together, these steps make it much tougher for cybercriminals to fool people and break into systems.

3. Network Security Controls

“Network segmentation doesn’t just protect data; it buys you time to detect, respond, and contain the threat before it spreads.”

Segment your network to prevent breaches from spreading by isolating systems and containing threats, and deploy advanced endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools to monitor and react swiftly to suspicious activities.

Implement the principle of least privilege, granting users and applications only the access necessary to perform their roles. These controls limit the lateral movement of attackers if one segment is compromised, containing the "blast radius.”

Deploying advanced endpoint protection solutions that include features like behavior-based detection, machine learning, and real-time threat intelligence can block ransomware before it can execute on user devices.

As you monitor the network, make sure to actively track unusual authentication patterns and lateral movement to detect potential intrusions early. You should also utilize deception technology to mislead attackers through decoy systems and uncover their reconnaissance attempts.

4. Technical Controls

Groups like Scattered Spider are known to use legitimate remote management tools. Shobhit recommends organizations:

• Monitor for unauthorized remote tools (AnyDesk, Splashtop, etc.) and block execution where unnecessary.
• Use application allowlisting on sensitive systems to ensure only approved software can be executed.
• Implement DNS filtering to block access to known malicious domains.
• Harden email security with pre-delivery phishing detection, DMARC enforcement, and sandboxing for attachments.

If remote desktop protocol (RDP) is not needed, disable it. If it is, secure it with strong passwords, MFA, VPNs, and restrict access to only authorized IPs.

5. Security Monitoring and Analytics

Social engineering attacks could occur at any moment. Shobhit highlights that 24/7 security monitoring is critical, and it should include user behavior analytics to identify unusual patterns that could signal potential social engineering attempts.

This around-the-clock monitoring also prevents off-hours authentication attempts. Over time, you can understand the typical behavior for privileged accounts and detect anomalies.

6. Incident Response Planning

Maintain offline backups of critical data and systems to recover in the event of a compromise, and make sure communication channels remain functional during an attack to coordinate responses without disruption.

Another critical element of response planning is to establish clear reporting channels for suspicious activity—ensure employees know exactly how and to whom they should report suspicious emails, calls, or interactions quickly and without fear of blame.

7. Robust Identity and Access Management

“Adopt a Zero Trust approach: verify everything, trust nothing by default. Because your IAM setup defines the blast radius of a successful social engineering attack."

Adopt Zero-Trust principles to ensure no user is automatically trusted and access requests are continuously verified. Limiting users to only the permissions they need reduces the chance of an attacker exploiting unnecessary access. Privileged Access Management (PAM) tools also safeguard sensitive accounts.

Perform regular audits of user permissions to help quickly identify and address any improper access. Additionally, just-in-time access for admin privileges ensures critical permissions are granted only when needed, minimizing exposure to potential misuse. Together, these measures close off common pathways that attackers rely on to infiltrate systems.

8. Response Readiness

“In a live social engineering attack, every second matters. Your response team needs muscle memory to execute, not a PDF.”

When an attacker succeeds, the goal shifts from prevention to containment. Shobhit recommends maintaining incident-specific playbooks for impersonation attempts, SIM swapping, and credential compromise. 

These playbooks should build rapid response protocols and run regular incident response exercises modeled on Scattered Spider’s tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). These simulations help refine your team’s readiness and reinforce decision-making under pressure.

9. Third-Party Risk Management

"If you’re trusting a vendor to hold your keys, make sure they lock their own doors.”

This strategy should also extend to any third parties you partner with, so assess the security practices of your critical vendors to ensure their protocols align with your organization’s standards.

Implement strict controls for third-party access to systems, limiting exposure and preventing unauthorized activities, and regularly review and update third-party rights and privileges to eliminate outdated or unnecessary permissions.

10. Defensive Password and Reset Strategy

“I can’t stress enough how critical it is to harden your identity verification processes, especially at the help desk, where attackers are most likely to test your weakest link.”

Biometrics, hardware tokens, push notifications, and MFA steps buff your defenses, but Shobhit emphasizes that the humble password is still the most consistently exploited weak point in every organization.

He offers a couple key tips for developing passwords that are difficult to reveal with brute force:

• Aim for long passwords (15+ characters is a good baseline; more is better), incorporating uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols.
• Avoid dictionary words or predictable substitutions (like '@' for 'a'). The goal is to make brute-forcing computationally infeasible.

Establish strict rules for verifying IT support and password reset requests so scammers can’t easily exploit these processes. Callback procedures help by confirming who’s making the request, reducing the chances of impersonation. 

Also, make sure challenge questions are hard to guess or look up, then practice with regular social engineering tests so your teams can spot and stop manipulation attempts.

Shoo the Spider Away with a Layered Defense and Trained Team 

The tactics used by groups like Scattered Spider are constantly evolving, but their success still hinges on human trust. Whether it’s through impersonation, deepfakes, or abusing remote access tools, their goal is to trick someone into opening the door.

“We need to stop thinking of social engineering as just a human problem or just a technical problem. It’s both. That’s why you need a layered defense,” Shobhit concludes.

Scattered Spider can be stopped, but it takes a coordinated, cross-functional response that aligns people, processes, and technology, from phishing-resistant MFA to deception technology, identity governance, and third-party access controls.

HackerOne’s platform is built around that philosophy, enabling continuous assessment, response readiness, and team-level resilience. See how our defense in depth strategy can catch malicious actors before they access your valuable data and systems.