High-risk individuals face a greater likelihood of attacks against their accounts due to a combination of their role and potential access to sensitive information and important people. You might be a high-risk individual if your work or public status means you have access to, or influence over, sensitive information that could be of interest to threat actors.
The NCSC has previously reported on the targeting of government officials’ accounts by China state-affiliated APT31, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) actor Star Blizzard and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Attackers may attempt to:
- Trick you into sharing login or account recovery codes.
- Add their own device to your account without you noticing.
- Join group chats without detection.
- Impersonate someone you know.
- Phish you using malicious links or QR codes.
