Achieving a consensual definition of phishing based on a systematic review of the literature

Abstract

Background: Phishing is a widely known phenomenon, but currently lacks a commonly accepted definition. As a result, many studies about phishing use their own definition. The lack of a common definition prevents knowledge accumulation and makes analysing studies or aggregating data about phishing a difficult task. Method:To develop a definition, we used existing definitions as input and combined them using crime science theories as the theoretical framework. A systematic review of the literature up to August 2013 was conducted, resulting in 2458 publications mentioning the word phishing. All journal articles, together with both highly cited and recent conference papers were selected, giving a total of 536 peer-reviewed publications (22%) to be manually reviewed. This resulted in 113 distinct definitions to be analysed.Results: An analysis identified key concepts that were found in most definitions and formed the building blocks for a consensual definition. We propose a new definition that is based upon current ones, which defines phishing in a comprehensive way and -in our opinion -addresses all important elements of phishing: 'phishing is a scalable act of deception whereby impersonation is used to obtain information from a target'. Conclusions:A consensual definition allows future research to be aligned and it facilitates the interpretation and comparison of existing research. The findings suggest that the routine activity approach can be applied to the digital world. Finally, the 'scalability' concept of our definition provides a new theoretical notion to digital crime that is independent of the employed channel.

Baiting the hook: factors impacting susceptibility to phishing attacks

“…In order to make the study as close as possible to a real phishing scenario, we implemented a fullscreen page API. 1 Moreover, by hovering their cursor over specific areas of the images, participants were able to identify useful information about the web page including security certificate information, button links, and basic source code. This was setup to mirror real web pages and to allow participants to move their mouse in the areas they were actually inspecting.…”

Detecting Internet Phishing Attacks Using Data Mining Methods

“…There is no universal definition for phishing and so far there have been many definitions for phishing attacks. For instance, Figure (2) represents the number of definitions for phishing attacks in respected papers [12]. As can be seen from the figure, in 2012 about 23 different definitions for phishing were presented.…”

“…Phishing is an internet attack using social engineering where the intruder tries to use different online or other techniques such as chat, SMS, and email to encourage users to enter certain websites to do a certain act [12].…”

Current Computer Network Security Issues/Threats

“…Exploitation begins and extends when the user begins to share passwords and usernames via the social network. The fourth phase, execution, is the stage at which the attacker accomplishes the ultimate goal by executing the attack and exiting the relationship in such a way that the target does not realize [8]. The fact that there is a cycle does not mean all the attacks are similar; each is unique and may involve one or multiple phases.…”