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Social engineering attacks: A systematic mapping study

Abstract:

Social engineering has become the most prominent attack since human beings are the weakest link in the chain of technology's security. In this paper, we conduct a systematic mapping study of vulnerabilities and countermeasures with human or software intervention. Our objectives are 1) to explore trends in technology security against social engineering attacks, 2) to categorize existing evidence, and 3) to identify potential directions for future research. In this SMS, we considered 960 studies published between 2016 and 2020. A total of 33 primary studies were finally chosen. We classified these primary sources into three categories. Our survey reveals an imbalance between these categories - most of the existing research focuses on phishing attack detection, with fewer studies targeting human behavior and attack prevention. Our survey also exposed several gaps in existing research and suggested areas for improvement.