Combating Cognitive Bias How Bias Colors Our Perceptions and Decisions, Enables Deception, and What We Can Do About It
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Combating Cognitive Bias How bias colors our perceptions and decisions, enables deception, and what we can do about it. Perry Carpenter Chief Evangelist & Strategy Officer KnowBe4 Disclaimer Classified as Confidential KnowBe4 Social Engineering Axioms 1. Social engineering is the act of manipulating humans into providing confidential information or performing harmful actions. 2. Humans are the most target-rich environment for attackers, because all humans are vulnerable to deception, influence, and disinformation. 3. Attackers rely on social engineering because it is often the fastest way to further their goals. 4. An attacker only has to be successful once to compromise their target while the target needs to be successful 100% of the time to avoid compromise. 5. Attackers are innovative and will utilize new methods to deceive and manipulate their unprepared victims. KnowBe4 Social Engineering Axioms 6. Motivated attackers or errant humans often bypass very expensive technical controls. 7. The human mind tends to take shortcuts in the absence of full understanding. 8. A distracted mind is a vulnerable mind. 9. Effective education is the only means to arm humans against deception and disinformation. 10. Security education is not done enough and not often enough to prevent social engineering. When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity. -- Dale Carnegie Imagine https://www.nar.realtor/blogs/styled-staged-sold/3-reasons-why-s taging-a-vacant-home-is-critical Imagine https://www.nar.realtor/blogs/styled-staged-sold/3-reasons-why-s taging-a-vacant-home-is-critical Imagine https://www.nar.realtor/blogs/styled-staged-sold/3-reasons-why-s taging-a-vacant-home-is-critical Imagine https://www.nar.realtor/blogs/styled-staged-sold/3-reasons-why-s taging-a-vacant-home-is-critical Imagine https://www.nar.realtor/blogs/styled-staged-sold/3-reasons-why-s taging-a-vacant-home-is-critical Imagine https://thedecorologist.com/occupied-home-staging-befores-a fters/ Imagine https://thedecorologist.com/occupied-home-staging-befores-a fters/ Imagine https://thedecorologist.com/occupied-home-staging-befores-a fters/ Imagine https://thedecorologist.com/occupied-home-staging-befores-a fters/ Halo Effect • Positive Impression • Higher Equity • More Trust & Better Value Horn Effect • Negative Impression • Lower Equity • Lesser Value & Low Trust Now let’s extend that Idea Now let’s extend that Idea Now let’s extend that Idea We make decisions based on emotion, and then use logic to justify our decisions. Elephant and Rider https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXyoJ343nV U The ELEPHANT is our primal side… driven by emotion. The RIDER is our logical side. It can give direction to the elephant, but the elephant has a lot more mass and can often feel like it has a mind of its own. It can be extremely difficult for the rider to control. Thinking, Fast & Slow (Daniel Kahneman) Graphic Source: https://readingraphics.com/book-summary-thinking-fast-and-slow/ Cognitive biases sneak in. They underlie much of our thinking and all our assumptions. … and they can easily be exploited Cognitive bias is why political conversations on Facebook never go well Note the implications across memory, social, learning, belief, money, and politics. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/50-cognitive-biases-in-the-modern-world/ “If the facts don’t fit the frame, it’s the facts people We’ve reject, not the been framed frame.” Susan Bales, President of FrameWorks What’s an OODA-Loop • Manipulate facts and how can it be • Withhold facts hacked? • Manipulate Context • Manipulate Attention Observe • Exploit known bias • Invoke Emotion Act Orient • Feed them a ”truth sandwich” Decide • Leverage the Cialdini Principles The OODA Loop Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop Trojan horses for the mind Images are a Compression Algorithm for the Mind QM Design Group Which do you more immediately respond to? These? Facebook Coca-Cola YouTube Taco Bell Which do you more immediately respond to? Or these? You can even remove the names and retain the meaning Now for an experiment… Which is quicker and easier to mentally process? This is why memes are powerful vehicles for delivering truths, recalling shared experiences, … … and exploiting cognitive biases Disinformation is a form of social engineering that leverages cognitive bias … and it is destroying us The ”4D” Offensive Strategy of Disinformation an opponents claims or allegations Dismiss events to serve political purposes Distort from one’s own activities, and Distract those who might otherwise oppose one's goals Dismay • “Fake news” is a politicized term • We are in a weaponized The State of information situation • Media is in the attention business, Play resulting in fake news laundering • Social media are the most powerful tools on the planet How an operator employs or abuses underground, gray, and legitimate marketplaces to disseminate fake news https://documents.trendmicro.com/assets/white_papers/wp-fake-news-machine-ho The Fake News Machine How Propagandists Abuse thew-propagandists-abuse-the-internet.pdf Internet and Manipulate the Public Division drives clicks, outrage, disenfranchisement, etc… Taming the Elephant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9KP8uiGZTs 1. Give direction/knowledge to the rider 2. Motivate the Elephant by tapping into emotion 3. Shape the path to allow for easy progress Taming the Elephant Resources • The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind, by Jonah Berger • Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, by Dan Ariely • Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, by Robert Cialdini • The Reality Game: How the Next Wave of Technology Will Break the Truth, by Samuel Woolley • The Righteous Mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion, by Jonathan Haidt • Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman • Why Are We Yelling: the Art of Productive Disagreement, by Buster Benson Remember to fill out YOUR SURVEY Q& A.