An academic review of current industrial and commercial cyber security social engineering solutions

Abstract

The study aims to assess popular awareness training solutions and techniques used by organizations to defend and mitigate cyber security social engineering threats. Social engineering threats are the most unpredicted threats an organization faces, leading to loss of confidential data, finances, intellectual property, and consumer credibility. Therefore, it is very important that an organization is well prepared to defend its information systems against social engineering threats. Literature in this domain presents various types of contemporary training and awareness solutions used at the corporate level to address social engineering threats, with the most prominent being reviewed in this study. Latest training methods identified in this study include serious games, gamification, virtual labs, tournaments, simulations, and the use of other modern applications. Similarly, current awareness programs that educate against social engineering threats including video streaming, compliances, theme-based trainings, awareness campaigns, and conferences are also included.