
Breadcrumbing: Understanding Emotional Manipulation to Better Defend Yourself in the Digital Domain
This article aims to explore the phenomenon of breadcrumbing from a psychological perspective, metaphorically linking it to the insidious strategies that attackers use in cybersecurity. We will discover how understanding human relational dynamics can offer us valuable tools to defend ourselves in the complex digital landscape. Forget the image of the hacker who breaks down doors. The cyber threat landscape of 2025 is dominated by a much more insidious strategy, borrowed directly from the darkest dynamics of human psychology: breadcrumbing. Think of it as a skilled fisherman’s technique: he doesn’t cast a huge net, but casts small, tempting baits—breadcrumbs—to keep fish within


