The Use of Subliminal and Supraliminal Messages in Phishing and Spear Phishing Based Social Engineering Attacks; Feasibility Study

Abstract

This paper evaluates the background research to identify the possibility of using a new vector of social engineering attack using a psychological concept which thus far had been only used in marketing and promotional campaigns. Subliminal and supraliminal messages have been studied by academia with respect to its ability to influence individual behavior. Social engineering attacks are defined as the art of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. Most of modern social engineering attacks depend on phishing and spear phishing attacks. This paper explores the possibility of identifying a correlations between the above mentioned psychological concepts and phishing/spear phishing attacks in the domain of cyber security.