On this episode of The Social-Engineer Podcast, host Chris sits down with Dr. Eva Krackow to discuss decision-making. Eva is an assistant professor in psychology at the University of Leicester, and focuses her research on judgement and decision-making, as well as how people can improve their daily choices for the better. Similarly, The Social-Engineer focuses on the end user, and how their decisions affect their online security. Eva talks about a game that was developed to research the difference in an individual’s behavior based on the motive of the game, being teamwork, or a competition, and how subtle framing can influence an individual’s behavior. Framing is a way to present an idea or concept to an individual to achieve desired results.

Chris and Eva discuss the parallels between online security, The Social-Engineer’s line of business, and an individual’s choice to lean towards a way of “framing” that appeals to them. In terms of phishing scams, where once there were emails riddled with errors, scams have become more intelligent, getting email correspondence to appear more legitimate. Framing of the message has become more professional and sophisticated. The framing of the emails has changed in a way to adapt to the individual reading the scam, allowing the scammer to continue to be successful in stealing identities and information.

Eva discusses issues that come along with our current age of social media, and how individuals are less likely to explore unfamiliar information because of the algorithms that these popular networking sites use to appease each individual user. Social media websites aren’t necessarily our friend when it comes to actual facts and accurate information, but it is coincidentally where most people are finding their news sources. She suggests we need to consistently look outside of our usual media sources, outside of our current friends list, and be aware of the information we’re absorbing. When we don’t take these initiatives on our own, we can find ourselves taking in a never ending supply of information that appeals specifically to us, making it easier to believe the news we take in to be fact, when many times, it’s not. Reframing our communication allows us to be more open to new information that we may not have been before, it can open doors we weren’t aware existed when we’re able to step outside of our comfort zone.

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Links:

Find more of Dr. Eva Krackow’s articles at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us

Find more information about The Social-Engineer at: https://www.social-engineer.org/

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Eva's Book Recommendations:

Trevor Noah - Born a Crime