Dissertation Topic PhD

Running head: PROPOSAL 1

PROPOSAL 3

PROPOSAL

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Cybersecurity: Social Media Engineering

Social engineering is the act of exploiting human vulnerabilities to achieve a malicious objective. Social engineering attacks target the human element because they are the weakest security link in an organization. The stream of employees using social media in the work environment presents information to security personnel with an array of challenges that face processes, technology, and people in the organization. Social engineering and social media sites are interconnected because vast personal and organizational information is streamlined in social media environments. Social engineers tend to exploit human behavior to form an attack; there is a need to find techniques and countermeasures that organizations can integrate to reduce social engineering prevalence in corporations.

Reasons for choosing the topic

The reason why I am passionate about the topic of research-social engineering is that there are numerous cases in the corporate world about security breaches that target the human element. Social engineering attacks are the most risky forms that can compromise privacy, and because they involve psychological manipulations and are growing at an alarming rate. Social media platforms are the channels of social engineering today. Understanding human behaviour can help analyze the strategies that can be integrated into organizations to prevent and mitigate such attacks. The topic of social engineering attacks is complex, and I would not want to be a victim.

Lack of protecting company information can result in data leakage, impact on business continuity, risks of enterprise reputation, and competitive advantage. The research would help business corporations and the general public understand the nature of social engineering attacks and how to protect them. Employees tend to share too much information on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter; at my future workplace, I want to be fully aware of the risks related to social engineering to avoid compromising the company's overall security. Also, the research should help protect the integrity, availability, and confidentiality of valuable enterprise assets.

Scholarly Source: Salahdine, F., & Kaabouch, N. (2019). Social engineering attacks: A survey. Future Internet, 11(4), 89. Retrieved from https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/11/4/89/htm