Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Sep;26(5):32.
doi: 10.1145/3336141.

Susceptibility to Spear-Phishing Emails: Effects of Internet User Demographics and Email Content

Tian Lin  1 , Daniel E Capecci  2 , Donovan M Ellis  1 , Harold A Rocha  1 , Sandeep Dommaraju  3 , Daniela S Oliveira  2 , Natalie C Ebner  1
Affiliations

Susceptibility to Spear-Phishing Emails: Effects of Internet User Demographics and Email Content

Tian Lin et al. ACM Trans Comput Hum Interact. 2019 Sep.

Abstract

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 emails on) on spear-phishing (targeted phishing) susceptibility. One-hundred 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.

Keywords: Aging; Emails; Life Domains; Phishing; Susceptibility; Weapons of Influence.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Phishing Internet Task (PHIT). A. Overall framework of PHIT. (1) Daily cron jobs invoked the phishing manager to (2) fetch participant, schedule, and spear-phishing emails from the database, and (3) send spear-phishing emails to the participants. B. Sample façade web-page created for the study to accompany the link embedded in the spear-phishing email. C. Overview of cron job implementation and triggered events in phishing manager.
Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Predicted susceptibility to phishing in young and older men and women. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Predicted susceptibility to phishing in young and older users as a function of time in study (in days). Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Predicted susceptibility to phishing as a function of weapons of influence in young and older users. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Predicted susceptibility to phishing as a function of life domains in young and older users. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Predicted susceptibility awareness to phishing as a function of (A) weapons of influence and (B) life domains in young and older users. 1 = not at all; 5 = very much. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Agarwal S, Driscoll JC, Gabaix X, & Laibson D (2009). The age of reason: Financial decisions over the life cycle and implications for regulation. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall, 51–117
    1. Alves LM, & Wilson SR (2008). The effects of loneliness on telemarketing fraud vulnerability among older adults. Journal of Elder Abuse &Neglect, 20, 63–85. - PubMed
    1. Bailey PE, Ruffman T, & Rendell P (2013), Age-related differences in social economic decision making: The ultimatum game, The Journals of Gerontology. Series B. Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 68, 356– 363. - PubMed
    1. Bailey PE, Slessor G, Rieger M, Rendell PG, Moustafa AA, & Ruffman T (2015). Trust and trustworthiness in young and older adults. Psychology and Aging, 30, 977–986. - PubMed
    1. Bailey PE, Szczap P, McLennan SN, Slessor G, Ruffman T, & Rendell PG (2016). Age-related similarities and differences in first impressions of trustworthiness. Cognition and Emotion, 30, 1017–1026. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources