The phishing victim profile: investigating how individual differences and social influence affect phishing susceptibility

This study aimed to construct a phishing victim profile based on differences in individual susceptibility due to a combination of dispositional factors and social engineering tactics. The individual differences investigated were demographic characteristics (i.e. age, gender and income) as well as th...

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Main Author: Yeo, Yeo
Other Authors: Olivia Choy
Format: Final Year Project
Language:English
Published: Nanyang Technological University 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/177335
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1773352024-06-02T15:32:15Z The phishing victim profile: investigating how individual differences and social influence affect phishing susceptibility Yeo, Yeo Olivia Choy School of Social Sciences Majeed Khader majeed@ntu.edu.sg, oliviachoy@ntu.edu.sg Social Sciences Phishing Big-Five personality traits Social engineering strategies Risk-taking This study aimed to construct a phishing victim profile based on differences in individual susceptibility due to a combination of dispositional factors and social engineering tactics. The individual differences investigated were demographic characteristics (i.e. age, gender and income) as well as the Big Five personality traits (i.e. extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness). The social engineering strategies examined were the principles of authority, social proof and scarcity. A total of 140 participants completed the online questionnaire on individual traits and the phishing detection task. There were four main findings for the study. First, the results revealed that participants were able to distinguish between real and phishing emails, as measured by their trust ratings. Furthermore, a signal detection analysis assessed potential response biases for participants’ phishing detection in detail. Second, contrary to the hypothesis, no significant differences were found in the effectiveness of the three social engineering strategies. As for individual differences, multiple regression analyses showed that only risk-taking propensity was found to be a significant predictor for phishing susceptibility. Finally, the only significant associations found between individual differences and social engineering strategies was for risk-taking and scarcity. Overall, the findings indicate that there is an urgent need for more research into the factors underlying phishing victimisation. Bachelor's degree 2024-05-27T03:34:02Z 2024-05-27T03:34:02Z 2024 Final Year Project (FYP) Yeo, Y. (2024). The phishing victim profile: investigating how individual differences and social influence affect phishing susceptibility. Final Year Project (FYP), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/177335 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/177335 en application/pdf Nanyang Technological University
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Social Sciences
Phishing
Big-Five personality traits
Social engineering strategies
Risk-taking
spellingShingle Social Sciences
Phishing
Big-Five personality traits
Social engineering strategies
Risk-taking
Yeo, Yeo
The phishing victim profile: investigating how individual differences and social influence affect phishing susceptibility
description This study aimed to construct a phishing victim profile based on differences in individual susceptibility due to a combination of dispositional factors and social engineering tactics. The individual differences investigated were demographic characteristics (i.e. age, gender and income) as well as the Big Five personality traits (i.e. extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness). The social engineering strategies examined were the principles of authority, social proof and scarcity. A total of 140 participants completed the online questionnaire on individual traits and the phishing detection task. There were four main findings for the study. First, the results revealed that participants were able to distinguish between real and phishing emails, as measured by their trust ratings. Furthermore, a signal detection analysis assessed potential response biases for participants’ phishing detection in detail. Second, contrary to the hypothesis, no significant differences were found in the effectiveness of the three social engineering strategies. As for individual differences, multiple regression analyses showed that only risk-taking propensity was found to be a significant predictor for phishing susceptibility. Finally, the only significant associations found between individual differences and social engineering strategies was for risk-taking and scarcity. Overall, the findings indicate that there is an urgent need for more research into the factors underlying phishing victimisation.
author2 Olivia Choy
author_facet Olivia Choy
Yeo, Yeo
format Final Year Project
author Yeo, Yeo
author_sort Yeo, Yeo
title The phishing victim profile: investigating how individual differences and social influence affect phishing susceptibility
title_short The phishing victim profile: investigating how individual differences and social influence affect phishing susceptibility
title_full The phishing victim profile: investigating how individual differences and social influence affect phishing susceptibility
title_fullStr The phishing victim profile: investigating how individual differences and social influence affect phishing susceptibility
title_full_unstemmed The phishing victim profile: investigating how individual differences and social influence affect phishing susceptibility
title_sort phishing victim profile: investigating how individual differences and social influence affect phishing susceptibility
publisher Nanyang Technological University
publishDate 2024
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/177335
_version_ 1800916253608509440