Research / Studies

Studies

Peer-reviewed research and foundational works, each summarized in plain English and tagged to PsySec principles, tactics, and the belief chain.

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FoundationalMixed methods · 2020

Categorizing human phishing difficulty: a Phish Scale

Click rates should be expected to vary with how hard a phishing email is for a given audience, especially when its premise fits the recipient's work context. The authors propose the NIST Phish Scale so programs can rate exercise difficulty and interpret click rates.

FoundationalField experiment · 2008

Wisecrackers: A theory-grounded investigation of phishing and pretext social engineering threats to information security

Drawing on marketing-persuasion theory, a field study tested whether the factors that make marketing campaigns work also explain who falls for phishing and pretext phone attacks, and found that they do: dispositional factors tied to persuasion predicted victimization.