Manipulation of emotional security by cybercriminals using social engineering technologies: a case study

In psychology, the pervasive social fraud is only becoming a matter of interest. The article looks at fraud from the perspective of manipulative influence on the mental state of a potential victim who «voluntarily» violates information security. The study raises the problem of the need to recognize the mechanism of fraudulent influence on a person and their behavior. The theoretical foundations of this problem are considered. The historical aspect of the application of social engineering technologies to obtain personal information and regulate human behavior is shown. The types of social fraud are described. The heterogeneity of fraudulent schemes is indicated. The factors of fraudulent influence that act as targets are presented, including empirically confirmed personal characteristics of potential and real victims, their thinking systems and basal emotional regulation. The role of cognitive distortions that reduce the effectiveness of critical thinking in an emotionally insecure state is shown. The stages of manipulative influence by fraudsters have been identified. A psychological analysis of a case of manipulative influence on emotional security by cybercriminals using social engineering technologies is described, with the results of a study into the victim’s identity presented. The study has found correspondence between the personal characteristics of the subject and the empirical portrait of a fraudsters’ victim in expressed indicators of benevolence, conscientiousness, anxiety, orientation to the value of security, conviction in the moral qualities of Another. The analysis of the victim’s narrative made it possible: to describe the criminals’ scenario within the range «situational tension - removal of psychological tension», when the victim is consistently deprived of key components of emotional security: calmness, confidence in the controllability of what is happening and the possibility of predicting the consequences; to establish the dynamics of the victim’s emotional experience and its influence on the perception of reality, on the mental system and, ultimately, on irrational behavior. Recommendations for the prevention of victimized behavior of a victim of fraud are formulated. The data obtained can be used in psychological counseling, in the field of risk management and forecasting in various industries where social fraud is represented in one way or another.