Phishing suspiciousness in older and younger adults: The role of executive functioning

Abstract

Phishing is the spoofing of Internet websites or emails aimed at tricking users into entering sensitive information, with such goals as financial or identity theft. The current study sought to determine whether age is associated with increased susceptibility to phishing and whether tests of executive functioning can predict phishing susceptibility. A total of 193 cognitively intact participants, 91 younger adults and 102 older adults, were primarily recruited through a Psychology department undergraduate subject pool and a gerontology research registry, respectively. The Executive Functions Module from the Neuropsychological Assessment Battery and the Iowa Gambling Task were the primary cognitive predictors of reported phishing suspiciousness. Other predictors included age group (older vs. younger), sex, education, race, ethnicity, prior knowledge of phishing, prior susceptibility to phishing, and whether or not browsing behaviors were reportedly different in the laboratory setting versus at home. A logistic regression, which accounted for a 22.7% reduction in error variance compared to the null model and predicted phishing suspiciousness with 73.1% (95% CI [66.0, 80.3]) accuracy, revealed three statistically significant predictors: the main effect of education (b = 0.58, SE = 0.27) and the interactions of age group with prior awareness of phishing (b = 2.31, SE = 1.12) and performance on the Neuropsychological Assessment Battery Mazes test (b = 0.16, SE = 0.07). Whether or not older adults reported being suspicious of the phishing attacks used in this study was partially explained by educational history and prior phishing knowledge. This suggests that simple educational interventions may be effective in reducing phishing vulnerability. Although one test of executive functioning was found useful for identifying those at risk of phishing susceptibility, four tests were not found to be useful; these results speak to the need for more ecologically valid tools in clinical neuropsychology.

The Psychology of Internet Fraud Victimisation: a Systematic Review

“…Similarly, anchoring-the tendency to use Community telephone sample (n = 1958) Low self-control leads to higher fraud victimisation; higher internet use predicts victimisation previous information as a base line for later decision processing-compromised the ability to identify fraudulent websites (Iuga et al 2016). Other dispositional factors, include executive functioning (Gavett et al 2017), theory of deception (a decision-making model; Alseadoon et al 2012;Alseadoon et al 2013), and cognitive health and well-being (Lichtenberg et al 2013;James et al 2014). Despite the obvious links to fraud, judgement and decision-making would appear to be a relatively underexplored area of research that potentially can link message and received factors in a meaningful way.…”

Exploring Older Adult Susceptibility to Fraudulent Computer Pop-Up Interruptions

“…Older adults have also been found to be more likely to report succumbing to Internet phishing scams than younger adults, with prior victimization not predicted by differences in executive functioning ability [2]. However, a recent study did not fully support these findings [15].…”

Phishing in healthcare organisations: threats, mitigation and approaches

“…To determine whether demographic factors may be related to phishing vulnerability, one study recruited around 200 participants, including approximately equal numbers of younger and older adults, and logistic regression analysis revealed three statistically significant predictors of phishing risk, namely, education level, preexisting awareness of phishing and performance on neuropsychological assessment tests, suggesting that relatively simple educational interventions could be effective in reducing phishing vulnerability 16. Technical tools may improve detection rates, but lack of knowledge of ‘risk clues’ appears of most importance in terms of reducing ‘click-through’ rates.…”