Susceptibility to Spear-Phishing Emails
Autor: | Tian Lin, Harold A. Rocha, Donovan M. Ellis, Daniel E. Capecci, Daniela Oliveira, Sandeep Dommaraju, Natalie C. Ebner |
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Rok vydání: | 2019 |
Předmět: |
Spear phishing
Demographics business.industry education 05 social sciences Internet privacy 02 engineering and technology Life domain Phishing humanities Article 050105 experimental psychology Personalization Human-Computer Interaction 020204 information systems 0202 electrical engineering electronic engineering information engineering ComputingMilieux_COMPUTERSANDSOCIETY 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences The Internet business Psychology |
Zdroj: | ACM Trans Comput Hum Interact |
ISSN: | 1557-7325 1073-0516 |
Popis: | Phishing is fundamental to cyber attacks. This research determined the effect of Internet user age and email content such as weapons of influence (persuasive techniques that attackers can use to lure individuals to fall for an attack) and life domains (a specific topic or aspect of an individual's life that attackers can focus an email on) on spear-phishing (targeted phishing) susceptibility. In total, 100 young and 58 older users received, without their knowledge, daily simulated phishing emails over 21 days. A browser plugin recorded their clicking on links in the emails as an indicator of their susceptibility. Forty-three percent of users fell for the simulated phishing emails, with older women showing the highest susceptibility. While susceptibility in young users declined across the study, susceptibility in older users remained stable. The relative effectiveness of the attacks differed by weapons of influence and life domains with age-group variability. In addition, older compared to young users reported lower susceptibility awareness. These findings support effects of Internet user demographics and email content on susceptibility to phishing and emphasize the need for personalization of the next generation of security solutions. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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