ERIC Number: ED571303
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2014-Jun
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
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Phishing E-Mails--Six Month Investigation into What People Click
Lehrfeld, Michael R.
Association Supporting Computer Users in Education, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association Supporting Computer Users in Education (ASCUE) (47th, Myrtle Beach, SC, Jun, 8-12, 2014)
Phishing and SPAM emails have been used by marketers and hackers alike since the inception of email and the Internet. Phishing messages have become so common that many legitimate emails often get flagged and placed in a user's spam bucket. No one is denying that these messages are at a minimum a nuisance, and in many cases malicious. But what is known about the success rates of these phishing campaigns? What are users most likely to fall victim too? Why do victims fall prey to these types of messages? This research attempts to shed some light on these questions. During a six month period, over 33,500 phishing emails were sent. Each of these emails was tagged with characteristics from a developed phishing matrix do determine which phishing messages are more likely to be clicked. The phishing matrix categorized messages into 4 dimensions; time, deception, geography, and group affiliation. What was discovered is that the most successful dimensions were time and deception. Phishing emails that exploited current events received high click rates as well as those with colorful figures and backgrounds. It was found that 15% of users clicked on more than one phishing campaign leading to an addicted clicker syndrome; a situation where a user will click on almost any message that enters their inbox. [For full proceedings, see ED571297. This paper was presented in the 2014 proceedings.]
Descriptors: Electronic Mail, Deception, Time, Geographic Location, Group Membership, Current Events
Association Supporting Computer Users in Education (ASCUE). 1513 Magnolia Drive, Surfside Beach, SC 29575. Tel: 606-218-5308; Fax: 606-218-5184; e-mail: president@ascue.org; Web site: http://www.ascue.org
Publication Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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Author Affiliations: N/A