Who are Phishers luring?: A Demographic Analysis of Those Susceptible to Fake Emails

Abstract

Previous research has identified several populations that are susceptible to inauthentic emails (e.g., spam). However, these studies utilize retrospective, self-report measures to assess email users’ interactions with limited sets of inauthentic emails. In order to fill this gap in the literature, the present study assessed participants’ likelihood to rate a wide variety of emails as spam, authentic, and dangerous. The results highlighted several key findings, 1) there were no gender differences for the email ratings, there were only differences in experience with email, 2) those who do not regularly email and read other electronic documents were more likely to rate emails as spam, possibly indicating an increase in false positives, and 3) the relationship between age and rating an email as spam indicates that younger users may be more susceptible to spam. Overall, the present study identified demographic characteristics that should be considered when training users to detect inauthentic emails.