Factors Affecting Individuals’ Susceptibility to Cyber Attacks

1. Factors Affecting Individuals’ Susceptibility to Cyber Attacks

2. Sample Phishing Email Dear employee, A verification of your records shows an error with your UB email account settings. To prevent closure of your account, please click the following link http://example.com to access your account and resolve the problem. You need to complete the request within two days of receiving the email in order to continue accessing your email account. Email Administrator

3. Cyberattacks • Corporate susceptibility versus individual susceptibility • Social engineering • Employee awareness being raised through simulated phishing attacks; but effects of these campaings don’t last • Suggests need for more focused training tied to individual needs

4. Prior Literature • Suspicion – Buss and Durkee 1957; Deutsch 19858 • Interpersonal Trust – Rotter 1967 • Suspicion re: Communication – Levine & McCornack 1991; Wright & Marrett 2010 • Professional Skepticism – Hurtt 2010 • Heuristic Processing – Vishwanath, Harrison and Ng 2018 • Understanding Phishing Emails – Karakasiliotis et al. 2006 • Training via Simulated Phishing Attacks – Kumaraguru et al. 2008

5. Focusing on Individual Training Needs to Counter Cyberattacks (Phishing)

6. Focusing on Individual Training Needs to Counter Cyberattacks (Phishing)

7. Measures Used [

8. Demographics • Age • Gender • Culture – first language • Perception of Cyber Risk at Work • Volume of Email • Pace of Work Environment • Media Distraction – Facebook vs. LinkedIn • Reporting vulnerabilities/breaches

9. Participants • Employees of professional services firm who had previously been exposed to a simulated phishing attack and volunteered to take our survey

10. Prliminary Results

11. Future Work • Run survey with 5000 employees of a Bank • Identify factors correlated with being phished • Create model to predict need for focused training