Chapter 3 - Crime Areas

3.6 Crimes relating to social engineering - Future threats and developments

As global technological knowledge continues to mature, new and more complex methods of social engineering is expected. The development of artificial intelligence may soon have a practical impact on offenders harvesting information through automated spam and phishing campaigns [108].

High speed broadband has become available in developing countries. This will increase the number of attacks from West Africa which traditionally ranks high for incidents involving spam and social engineering, and will likely further develop with a gradual shift to more sophisticated crime [109].

Social networks are likely to be increasingly targeted, particularly if they implement payment mechanisms through fiat or virtual currencies.

Customisation of phishing attacks is increasing. Replica sites with SSL encryption will become more widespread, targeting users in their local languages [110].

The Internet of Everything (IoE) offers new attack vectors for criminals. Spam campaigns disseminated via IoE devices will pose new challenges for forensic examinations.