Informing, simulating experience, or both: A field experiment on phishing risks.

ABSTRACT: Cybersecurity cannot be ensured with mere technical solutions. Hackers often use fraudulent emails to simply ask people for their password to breach into organizations. This technique, called phishing, is a major threat for many organizations. A typical prevention measure is to inform employees but is there a better way to reduce phishing risks? Experience and feedback have often been claimed to be effective in helping people make better decisions. In a large field experiment involving more than 10,000 employees of a Dutch ministry, we tested the effect of information provision, simulated experience, and their combination to reduce the risks of falling into a phishing attack. Both approaches substantially reduced the proportion of employees giving away their password. Combining both interv

SUBMITTER: Baillon A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6919577 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature