Characterizing the Evolution of Psychological Tactics and Techniques Exploited by Malicious Emails

TL;DR

This paper introduces a methodology to analyze how psychological tactics and techniques are exploited in malicious emails, providing insights into their evolution and guiding future defenses against cyber social engineering attacks.

Contribution

It presents a novel methodology for characterizing the evolution of psychological tactics and techniques used in malicious emails, applied to real-world data.

Findings

Certain PTacs and PTechs are more frequently exploited.

Insights reveal patterns in the evolution of attack strategies.

Guides future research for psychologically-informed defenses.

Abstract

The landscape of malicious emails and cyber social engineering attacks in general are constantly evolving. In order to design effective defenses against these attacks, we must deeply understand the Psychological Tactics, PTacs, and Psychological Techniques, PTechs, that are exploited by these attacks. In this paper we present a methodology for characterizing the evolution of PTacs and PTechs exploited by malicious emails. As a case study, we apply the methodology to a real-world dataset. This leads to a number insights, such as which PTacs or PTechs are more often exploited than others. These insights shed light on directions for future research towards designing psychologically-principled solutions to effectively counter malicious emails.