From Digital Footprints to Cognitive Compromise: A Behavioural Architecture of Social Engineering and Psychological Manipulation in Sub-Saharan Africa: A scoping review

Abstract Introduction: Social engineering has emerged as a significant method of cybercrime in sub-Saharan Africa, shifting focus from technical hacking to exploiting human behaviour. While global research on cyber threats is extensive, understanding the specific vulnerabilities of African populations remains limited. This scoping review aims to map and synthesise existing knowledge on social engineering attacks and psychological manipulation, particularly examining how threat actors evolve from platform-based initial access points to leveraging cognitive and inhibitory psychological triggers. Methods This scoping review was conducted according to the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Review guidelines. Data were extracted from multiple databases including IEEE Xplore, Web of Science, Scopus, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar. The management of this data was facilitated using the EndNote citation manager. Subsequently, a thematic analysis of the full texts reviewed was conducted, guided by the Hadnagy Social Engineering Framework. Findings: This review delves into existing studies and reports, organising findings into three pivotal areas: initial access points across various platforms, weaponisation of positive psychological triggers, and inhibitory (negative) psychological triggers. The data analysed at the corporate, educational, and consumer levels illustrates how cybercriminals exploit online self-disclosure through avenues such as social media, mobile money, and online transactions. The findings also show how the threat actors skilfully leverage essential collectivistic cultural values such as community trust, mutual aid and support, language familiarity, and biases toward authority, to execute social engineering attacks within the dynamic landscape of Sub-Saharan Africa. Conclusion This review highlights the need for strategies to enhance safety warnings and cybersecurity awareness through localised education, balanced defences, artificial intelligence (AI) driven intercepts, and improved user interface and user experience (UI/UX) design, to promote effective user resilience against cyber and digital threats.