Digital Forensics and Cyber
Psychology
How computers are used to catch
criminals but also how criminals trick
humans!
Sort the Digital Forensics Cards
• Match the threat to the definition...
Psychology
• What is it?
Cyber Psychology and Social
Engineering
• Social engineering is the clever manipulation
of the natural human tendency to trust.
• Criminal hackers often use social engineering
techniques to gain information about or
access to their targets.
• You want to get hold of some information
about where your school keeps its student
files and who has access to them. How do you
find out?
In your groups
• Pick one of the cyber psychology threats and
draw it or role play/act it out for the rest of
the group to guess...
Cyber Psychology Threats
Definition
Pretexting
A criminal tries to get someone to give them
information by inventing a reason they need to
be told. Often by pretending to be someone
official/helpful.
Quid pro quo
Similar to pre-texting but usually the person
will give something valuable to the target, to
earn their trust.
Tailgating
Following someone through a barrier or
security door to avoid having to have an access
card or keycode.
Phishing
A common cyber crime: an official looking
email asks a user to click on a link and update
their details or send money. Often
recognisable by strange fonts or bad spelling.
Baiting
Cyber criminals use clever tricks to get
someone to upload a virus. This could be
writing ‘VERY IMPORTANT’ on a USB stick and
leaving it on the ground for someone to find.
Look at the web security threats...
• What advice could you give people to reduce
their chances of becoming victims of these
sorts of threats?
securefutures.org
• The game you’re about to play has been
created as a way of letting you test your cyber
skills.
• The games are self explanatory, you just need
to create a login (maybe note it down so you
don’t forget it).
Plenary 1: Threat Bingo
• choose nine threats from the list and put
them randomly into a 3x3 square.
• As I read out the definitions you can tick off
the threats and the first to get a line of three
shouts ‘bingo!’ and wins.
Plenary 2: Case Studies
• In pairs or small groups, read the digital forensics case
studies and sum them up (for the benefit of those who
have the other study).
Answer the following questions afterwards
1. What do you understand by the term ‘digital forensics’?
2. Discuss other crimes that might be solved using digital
forensics.
3. What sort of skills do you need to work in digital
forensics?
4. Are there any ethical concerns with digital forensics?