Social Engineering and the Psychological Aspects of Cyber Crime

This chapter focuses on the psychology of social engineering, explaining how thieves use minds and emotional appeals and persuasive techniques to hook people. Subsidizing a light-hearted history of the Trojan horse to more recent AI-based attacks, it cites shifting methods of manipulation, including phishing, pretexting, and BEC scams. A survey of few respondents indicated that self-serving biases, recency bias, and optimism bias were found the most common as well as that the vast majority were exposed to data breaches which highlights human vulnerability. Case studies like the Target breach, Google/Facebook BEC scam, and Twitter hack illustrate real-world impacts. The chapter emphasizes that technology does not ensure resilience, but multi-layer approaches that should involve technical controls, procedural hazards, and psychological awareness are an effective way of establishing a human firewall.