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Psychology of Phishing Attacks During Crises: The Case of Covid-19 Pandemic
Kaliňák, Viliam ; Erkomashvili, David (advisor) ; Špelda, Petr (referee)
Events and circumstances that accompany crises such as losses of loved ones, losses of material resources, dislocation, or physical harm, have an overall negative impact on people's mental health. It is this impaired state of man which makes him vulnerable to manipulation of social engineers who wants to take advantage of him in order to enrich themselves. This was also the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, the unprecedented crisis in modern history, during which phishing and fraud campaigns rapidly increased as people have been forced to stay safe at home and spent most of a day online. This work analyzes the psychological strategies of cybercriminals on a sample of more than 200 phishing e-mails in order to understand how the situation was abused and what can be learnt to prevent it in the future. It also provides theoretical and research frameworks for researchers who can apply it also on other types of crises. The results contribute to the fields of psychology, cybercrime as well as crisis management. Keywords COVID-19, phishing, social engineering, psychology, persuasion, crises, pandemic, impersonation, pretexting
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The pitfalls of social engineering, prevention and protection
Rytychová, Jana ; Hejda, Jan (advisor) ; Syrovátka, Oldřich (referee)
This bachelor thesis deals with the issue of social engineering, especially from the point of view of threats, which is present for society today. In addition to clarifying the concept itself, the aim of the thesis is to familiarize itself with the most common tools and methods of social engineering, with respect to expansion of information technologies, which is a golden age for the given branch. The output of this thesis is a general manual for the manager. It will form the cornerstone of information security settings and will be an imaginary counterbalance to identified threats and also as a possible tool for employee training.
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