Cybersecurity: Risks, vulnerabilities and countermeasures to prevent social engineering attacks
Open accessAbstract
The broad objective of this study is to evaluate the vulnerabilities of an organization's information technology infrastructure, which include hardware and software systems, transmission media, local area networks, wide area networks, enterprise networks, intranets, and its use of the internet to cyber intrusions. To achieve this objective, the paper attempts to explain the importance and the role of social engineering in network intrusions and cyber-theft. It also discusses in vivid detail, the reasons for the rapid expansion of cybercrime. The paper also includes a complete description and definition of social engineering, the role it plays in network intrusion and cyber identity theft, a discussion of the reasons for the rise in cybercrime and their impact on organizations. In closing the authors recommend some preventive measures and possible solutions to the threats and vulnerabilities of social engineering. The paper concludes that while technology has a role to play in reducing the impact of social engineering attacks, the vulnerability resides with human behaviour, human impulses and psychological predispositions. While literature supports the dangers of psychological susceptibilities in social engineering attacks investment in organizational education campaigns offer optimism that social engineering attacks can be reduced.
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Companies are investing large amounts of money and resources to establish effective strategies against social engineering attacks.
“Companies are investing large amounts of money and resources to establish effective strategies against social engineering attacks [67,68].”
From Social Engineering Attacks: A Survey (2019) · cites this paper as [68]
Section 6 says companies are adding layers to their security schemes, and the discussion of preventive measures mentions expensive infrastructure and network-security investments. The paper does not establish that companies broadly invest large amounts of money and resources in effective strategies against social engineering; it notes that only seven percent of U.S. organizations deploy phishing-education materials. Page numbers are not available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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Cites
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Social Engineering Attacks: A Survey
Salahdine, F., & Kaabouch, N. (2019) · Future Internet · doi:10.3390/fi11040089 · Cited by 509 · see citing works
Investigation of False Data Injection Attacks on Smart Inverter Settings
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Cybersecurity Threats, Vulnerability and Analysis in Safety Critical Industrial Control System (ICS)
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- Authors
- Conteh, N. Y., & Schmick, P. J.
- Affiliations
- University System of Maryland (US)
- Southern University at New Orleans (US)
- Venue
- International Journal of Advanced Computer Research
- Published
- 2016-02-12
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 23
- Pages
- 31-38
- ISSN
- 2249-7277 (ISSN-L)
- 2277-7970
- OpenAlex
- W4230908098
- Cited by
- 147
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 23 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 25 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 4 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 20.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- International Journal of Advanced Computer Research (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Information and Cyber Security
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Spam and Phishing Detection
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Cybercrime and Law Enforcement Studies
- Keywords
- social engineering, cybersecurity, network intrusion, cybercrime, identity theft, human behavior, countermeasures
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