The Impact of Social Engineering: How Hackers Manipulate Human Psychology

By: Nicko Cajes; Northern Bukidnon State College, Philippines

Abstract

An attack that utilizes the weaknesses of human have been introduced in the modern types of attack namely social engineering, this type of attack manipulates the human psychology to obtain confidential information. Emotions like fear, urgency, and trust are few other most targeted weaknesses by the victim to effectively fool them. This article will venture to the most common social engineering techniques utilized by the attacker which includes the phishing, pretexting, baiting, and tailgating, together with providing defense strategies like cyber-awareness training, multi-factor authentication, and request verification to prevent social engineering attacks.

Introduction

Social engineering refers to the technique of using weaknesses in humans to influence people in attempt to get private data, including bank account, locations, and passwords. To conduct this illegal activity, attackers exploit inherent vulnerabilities like emotions, trust, and habits rather than technical limitation. Despite being less sophisticated compared to different online attack tactics, social engineering may seriously harm the person who is attacked [1]. Attackers thrive in dangerous circumstances due to how they are able to exploit the vulnerable human element, which is the weakest point in cybersecurity environment. People are somewhat prone to suffer into scams in these circumstances because of their fear, errors of judgment, and ignorance [2]. Human characteristics are used by attackers online to get passwords, gain illegal entry, and infiltrate systems with malicious software. As cyber threats become increasingly growing, the importance of understanding how human manipulation is done in cybersecurity. To address that problem, this article aims to discuss how hackers manipulate human psychology, this will include the common social engineering attacks, real-world examples, and how to defend against those fraudulent tactics, ensuring that everyone can be safe and prevent being the victim of it.

The Psychology Behind Social Engineering

In today’s modern world, hackers have been implementing a lot of novel ways to attack their victims and the one way that they are doing it is the exploitation of the human vulnerabilities. Since humans have inherent weakness nature, attackers can utilize it simply by psychological manipulation specifically the use of emotional triggering techniques such as urgency, fear, and trust [3].

Fear: As the word suggest, social engineering attacks can take advantage of fear, simply means to making the victim afraid. In a social engineering attack, they can rely on this emotion through stating in their message that the victim can lose access to the important files if the victim will not comply to the request [4].

Urgency: In a social engineering attack that utilize the method of urgency, attackers sent fraudulent messages to the victim stating that bank or any related accounts is experiencing a hacking activity, which requiring the victim to comply to their request as soon as possible, with this it can put the victim in a state of panic and will have a high probability of making them put their information [5].

Trust: In a social engineering attack that makes use of trust, a well-known authority coming from different sectors like bank or government can be utilized by the attacker and then impersonates them. While acting like the trusted individuals, the victim will think that they are communication with the legitimate person where in fact, they are communicating with the fraudulent one [6]. If they are not too aware of this, they can easily exploit their important details.

Common Social Engineering Techniques

Phishing: Phishing is a type of social engineering attacks which was commonly used and well-known method for online hackers to exploit their victim’s important information, usually hackers are aiming to get information such as the username, password, credit card number, and banking information. This social engineering attack was done through the use of communication platform like email and short messaging service (SMS) [7].

Pretexting: Pretexting is an attack done through software which made possible by the attacker by impersonating as a well-known authority figure and creating some notorious fake scenarios aiming to trick the victim and made them disclose private information which they want to obtain. By implementing this technique, victims can have a higher chance of believing them and will provide the important things attackers request making them face potential identity theft and financial loss [8].

Baiting: Baiting is somewhat a more different approach, in this type of social engineering attack, virus-infected USBs or various CDs are dropped with the primary aim of letting the people pick it up and use it in their respective home computers. When this virus-infected objects are inserted on the victim’s devices, viruses like Trojan can take control to the device and can possibly take it down, representing a ransomware attack which the device becomes unavailable until they paid the attacker with mentioned amount of money [9].

Tailgating: Tailgating is another type of attack which primarily targets the human trust and basic human courtesy, this happens when an attacker request for some help on an authorized users and then with the help of basic courtesy, they can then access the prohibited area, making them able to conduct a malicious attack [10].

How to Defend Against Social Engineering Attacks

The threat coverage associated with this type of cyber-attack needs to be solved and the first thing to do is to be aware of what it is. Effective solution that ca be utilized to prevent being a victim of this attack includes cyber awareness and training, multi-factor authentication, verifying request before acting, and recognizing psychological manipulation tactics.

Cyber Awareness Training: The purpose of cybersecurity awareness training is to encourage, motivate, develop, and restore digital safety procedures and abilities in specific target groups. Promoting and encouraging consumers of internet services to take preventative measures and receive training regarding digital defense techniques. Additionally, it gives these individuals proficiency in any area of cyber-security, this will ensure that the country’s network infrastructure is not the only thing that is protected by the cyber-attack, but also the user through gaining some knowledge about it [11].

Multi-Factor Authentication: Implementing Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), which is a safety measure that uses several techniques for authentication to safeguard system use, is a possible way to address the social engineering issue. By Combining several methods to confirm the identities of users while gaining permission to a system, it can provide a better security through providing an extra level of defense apart from the usage of a username or passcode [12].

Verifying Request before Acting: The verification of request before acting independently is a very good practice to do to effectively avoid being a victim of a social engineering attack. This can be done through critically analyzing the content or the message that was receive through any messaging application to full proof its credibility [13].

Recognizing Psychological Manipulation tactics: Being aware of what are the common tactics done by the attacker in conducting their malicious attacks is also a good asset in safeguarding yourself from them. By knowing some common words, they used such as an emotional triggering one or the method of attacks such as inserting a malicious link to a message, you can be put in a low-risk and can achieve a more peaceful life [14].

These defense strategies against social engineering attacks are just simple to implement. However, the benefit that you can get from these can be a lot more worth it especially in the situation of today’s world where cyber attacks that roots from social engineering becomes more often.

Conclusion

As the evolution of cyber-threats is continuously growing, the importance to understand how they are done becomes an important part in avoiding them. By easily recognizing attacks that can be linked to psychological techniques and implementing defensive measures, mitigation can be done more successfully. Cyber awareness training methods and thinking critically are also one of the important characteristics an individual could have to ensure being safe in the digital environment.

References

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Cite As

Cajes N. (2025) The Impact of Social Engineering: How Hackers Manipulate Human Psychology, Insights2Techinfo, pp.1

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