Cyberpsychological threat intelligence

Threat Intelligence is a core component in an effective Cyber Defensive Strategy. It allows operational defences to be strengthened in advance of emerging cyber-threats, mitigating the impact of potential damage. Social influence, disinformation and misinformation are new areas for threat intelligence and their impact can be seen in recent international controversies surrounding election tampering, civil unrest and journalistic integrity. Recent events suggest that influence attacks are impacting organisations on a broader scale, with rapid global impact. High volume and targeted online traffic add legitimacy that has influenced stock value, international sporting events and disrupted vaccine programmes. Social influence attacks are also a cybersecurity issue that needs to be understood with clear definitions, guidance and analysis of tactics, techniques and procedures, in order for the cybersecurity community to build appropriate defences and skillsets. These types of attacks can be classed as Cyber-Psychological Attacks (CPA) and are built on techniques from multiple disciplines. It is an IT issue based on the technologies used; it is a psychological issue based on techniques applied; and it is a marketing and design issue framing psychological techniques to achieve successful outcomes. In isolation, all of these elements are not new but when combined, they have the potential to create a powerful and effective weapon in cyber warfare. This paper presents a review of the effect that social influence attacks are having in the context of cyber-threat intelligence. We explore how important CPA techniques have become in the broad field of cybersecurity as we describe how online influence has been weaponised and deployed to significant effect. We conclude with a discussion on the importance of cyberpsychological threat intelligence in cyber defence and its limitations in the context of emerging threats.