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

Key finding

43% of participants clicked at least one simulated phishing email, with older women most susceptible. Young users' susceptibility dropped over the 21 days while older users' stayed flat, and the effectiveness of each persuasion technique and life-domain topic varied by age group. Older users also rated their own susceptibility lower than it was.

Why it matters

Shows persuasion tactics work differently for different people and that self-assessed awareness diverges from behavior, arguing for personalized, behavior-based feedback.

Cite

Lin, T., Capecci, D. E., Ellis, D. M., Rocha, H. A., Dommaraju, S., Oliveira, D. S., & Ebner, N. C. (2019). Susceptibility to Spear-Phishing Emails: Effects of Internet User Demographics and Email Content. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI). https://doi.org/10.1145/3336141