July 9, 2025

Guest Author: Kevin Tian, Co-Founder and CEO, Doppel

Few cyber threats are as insidious and persistent as social engineering and malware. While technological defenses have grown increasingly sophisticated, so too have the tactics of cybercriminals who exploit human psychology to bypass even the most robust security frameworks.

As organizations seek to stay ahead of these threats, innovative solutions are emerging to bridge the critical gap between human behavior and digital security—most notably, platforms that offer proactive social engineering defense.

The Growing Threat of Social Engineering and Malware

Social engineering, the psychological manipulation of individuals into divulging confidential information or performing actions that compromise security, has become the leading cause of data breaches. According to Verizon’s 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report, 60% of all breaches in the past year involved the human element, including social engineering, errors, and misuse. Some 42% of breaches globally involved phishing, compromised credentials or exploited vulnerabilities, the report stated.

The landscape of malware — malicious software such as viruses, ransomware, and spyware — has also evolved. Attackers increasingly combine malware with social engineering to create multi-vector campaigns that are harder to detect and stop.

Business Email Compromise (BEC) schemes, for example, often involve carefully crafted emails that trick employees into wiring money or exposing credentials. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported BEC losses of over $2.7 billion in 2024 alone.

These figures underscore a harsh reality: while firewalls and endpoint detection systems are essential, they cannot prevent a user from clicking a malicious link or surrendering a password under false pretenses.

Traditional Defenses Are Not Enough

Legacy cybersecurity solutions—such as antivirus programs, firewalls, and even Security Awareness Training (SAT)—while still necessary, are increasingly inadequate in isolation.

• Antivirus and Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solutions are reactive and depend on known signatures. They can be bypassed by zero-day threats or fileless malware.
• Secure Email Gateways (SEG) filter known threats but struggle with novel phishing attacks that impersonate trusted contacts.
• Security Awareness Training, though important, is limited by retention, fatigue, and the assumption that users will always follow protocols under stress or distraction.

The common thread across these tools is their dependency on either pre-existing knowledge of threats or ideal user behavior—both of which are easily exploited by modern attackers.

The Need for Innovation in Social Engineering Defense

Given the limitations of current solutions, innovation must occur in two key areas:

1. Behavioral security that adapts in real time to suspicious activities, especially those that exploit human interaction.
2. Proactive social engineering defense that anticipates threats before they reach the end user.

Enter the Social Engineering Defense (SED) framework: a new class of defense platform specifically designed to counteract social engineering with a proactive, intelligent approach.

SED redefines what effective cyber defense looks like in the age of AI-powered impersonation. It ’s not a tool or a tactic – it’s a strategic orientation. A blueprint for turning detection into disruption. It is built around three foundational capabilities:

1. Networked Intelligence 
   Networked intelligence is the foundation of scalable, collaborative security. It’s a shared threat model that continuously maps attacker infrastructure, linking domains phone numbers, spoofed accounts, scam content, and dark web assets into a unified, always-evolving threat graph.
2. Multi-modal, multi-channel AI
   Modern social engineering attacks are not bound to one medium or platform. A true SED framework leverages AI that spans formats, including voice, video, text, and behavior, and also channels, including unstructured and fringe environments.
3. Attack Infrastructure Takedown
   A key principle of the SED framework is automated infrastructure disruption – identifying and dismantling domains, phishing kits, fake accounts, and scam infrastructure that power impersonation at scale.

Complementary Technologies on the Horizon

Doppel is part of a broader movement toward proactive, AI-driven, and behavior-based cybersecurity. Other notable technologies and innovations in this domain include:

• AI-Powered User Behavior Analytics (UBA)
  Tools that learn the normal behavior of employees and flag deviations—such as a user downloading massive amounts of data at unusual hours—are becoming more precise and context-aware.
• Natural Language Processing (NLP) for Phishing Detection
  Advanced NLP models can analyze email tone, sentence structure, and contextual clues to flag emails that are likely phishing attempts, even if they pass traditional filters.
• Zero Trust Architecture
  Moving beyond perimeter defense, Zero Trust enforces “never trust, always verify” policies at every access point. Combined with identity analytics, it reduces the impact of social engineering attacks.
• Decentralized Identity Systems
  Based on blockchain or other cryptographic methods, decentralized identity platforms reduce the risks of centralized credential theft, a common outcome of phishing.
• Human Risk Scoring
  Some security platforms now assign a dynamic risk score to users based on their behavior, training completion, and incident history. This score determines access privileges and alert levels, offering more nuanced protection.

A Future-Oriented Defense Posture

As cyber threats continue to evolve, particularly in the realm of social engineering, organizations must shift from reactive defenses to anticipatory strategies. Doppel exemplifies this shift by offering a dynamic, intelligence-driven platform that addresses social engineering at its source—before it reaches the user.

In the coming years, the convergence of AI, behavioral science, and synthetic environments will define the cutting edge of cybersecurity. Engaging attackers with decoy identities and neutralizing them before harm is done is not just innovative; it’s essential in a world where attackers no longer need to hack machines to breach data, they simply need to trick a person.

By integrating solutions like Doppel into broader security frameworks, organizations can move beyond firewalls and phishing filters to a more holistic, resilient defense posture that protects both technology and the people who use it.

Stop social engineering before it impacts your business with Doppel. Book a Demo.