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Social engineering: A qualitative study of how social engineering is used as a social technic in cybercrimes
Malmö University, Faculty of Health and Society (HS), Department of Criminology (KR).
2023 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

Cybercrime has significantly increased the last two decades on a global scale, and its high complexity and annual cost in society has made it a great political matter of combating the crime rates. Most concerning is social engineering, which is likely involved in most cybercriminal attacks. Social engineering is a set of behavioral actions that are performed on other people to affect people’s behavior and decisions in favors of the social engineering attacker. Due to the challenging human aspects of social engineering this study aims to identify which social engineering methods cybercriminal use in their interaction with their victims, and how social engineering unfolds in the given contexts of the crime. This study has conducted qualitative research including 20 semistructured in-depth interviews with victims or attempted victims of digital fraud. The result from the analysis identified different social actions performed by the perpetrator in trying to fraud their victim. Most significant is credibility which was achieved by the perpetrator through different social technics. Various life circumstances also made the victims/attempted victims more vulnerable to the perpetrator’s manipulative behavior of excuses and persuasion. With a credible identity and various factors contributing to the victim's vulnerability, social engineering manifests itself by using psychological behavioral techniques to manipulate victims into believing they are engaging in a legitimate action.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2023.
National Category
Social Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-63147OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-63147DiVA, id: diva2:1804931
Educational program
HS Criminology
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2023-10-25 Created: 2023-10-14 Last updated: 2023-10-25Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
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Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
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Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf