Security for Vulnerable Populations—On the Interplay of Weapons of Influence and Life Domains in Predicting Older Adults Susceptibility to Spear-Phishing Emails

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Presented at enigma 2017 by

Daniela Oliveira

Older adults constitute a vulnerable population for online social engineering attacks because of their cognition decline with age, including deception sensitivity. They are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population, control over half of the financial wealth, and occupy many positions of power. Spear-phishing emails are used as a central component in many cyber-attacks. Successful emails employ psychological weapons of influence (e.g., scarcity), and relevant life domains (e.g., health) to deceive victims. This talk discusses older adults’ susceptibility to spear-phishing emails as a function of weapon of influence and life domain. A 21-day study was conducted with 83 participants (young and older adults) with data collection at the participants’ homes. Our results show that older users, especially older women, were more susceptible to phishing than younger users. While younger users were susceptible to a few weapons of influence and life domains, older users were susceptible to a variety of them. Further, there was a discrepancy, particularly among older users, between self-reported susceptibility awareness and actual susceptibility. Our results could lead to a well-grounded next generation of phishing defense solutions and training, which would take into account user age, weapons of influence, and life domains, to be effective.