Assessing Individual Differences in a Phishing Detection Task

Some authors suggest that regardless of how good security technology is, it is the “people problem” that must be overcome for successful cybersecurity (West, Mayhorn, Hardee, & Mendel, 2009). While security threats to the average computer user might take a variety of forms such as viruses or worms delivered via nefarious websites or USB drives, identity theft tactics such as phishing are becoming increasingly problematic and common. Phishing is a technology-based, social engineering tactic where attackers attempt to appear as authorized sources to target individuals and obtain personal and/or sensitive information. The current research aims to explore how individuals differ in phishing susceptibility within the context of a real world email-related decision making task.