Introducing cyber security by designing mock social engineering attacks
Brent Wilson · Journal of computing sciences in colleges · 2018
The attack surface for hackers and attackers is growing every day. Many of the attacks start with some form of social engineering. Future cybersecurity professionals must not only have the knowledge and the skills to defend against all types types of attacks but more importantly they must have an understanding of the psychological aspect of social engineering to better educate their users in identifying social engineering attacks. Most of us have fallen victim at some level to a social engineering attack. Learning defensive techniques can help but that is often not enough. Changing the way a person thinks and in turn behaves regarding social engineering is key to identifying and defending against a social engineering attack. Understanding the threat environment by designing mock social engineering attacks helps students to change their thinking and their behavior regarding social engineering cyber attacks [10].