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How Good Are We at Detecting a Phishing Attack? Investigating the Evolving Phishing Attack Email and Why It Continues to Successfully Deceive Society

Fiona Carroll Orcid Logo, John Ayooluwa Adejobi, Reza Montasari Orcid Logo

SN Computer Science, Volume: 3, Issue: 2

Swansea University Author: Reza Montasari Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1007/s42979-022-01069-1

Abstract

Phishing attacks are on the increase. The fact that our ways of living, studying and working have drastically changed as a result of the COVID pandemic (i.e., almost everything being done online) has created many new cyber security concerns. In particular, with the move to remote working, the number...

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Published in: SN Computer Science
ISSN: 2662-995X 2661-8907
Published: Springer Science and Business Media LLC 2022
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa61874
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first_indexed 2022-11-10T14:46:07Z
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spelling 2022-11-10T14:49:08.1686241 v2 61874 2022-11-10 How Good Are We at Detecting a Phishing Attack? Investigating the Evolving Phishing Attack Email and Why It Continues to Successfully Deceive Society e420369ac98aaaa7f39248e39a847af1 0000-0001-7136-6753 Reza Montasari Reza Montasari true false 2022-11-10 CSSP Phishing attacks are on the increase. The fact that our ways of living, studying and working have drastically changed as a result of the COVID pandemic (i.e., almost everything being done online) has created many new cyber security concerns. In particular, with the move to remote working, the number of phishing emails threatening employees has increased. The 2020 Phishing Attack Landscape Report (Greathorn: 2020 Phishing attack landscape. https://info.greathorn.com/report-2020-phishing-attack-landscape/, 2020) highlights a sharp increase in the frequency of attempted phishing attacks. In this paper, we are interested in how the phishing email attack has evolved to this very threatening state. In detail, we explore the current phishing attack characteristics especially the growing challenges that have emerged as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper documents a study that presented test participants with five different categories of emails (including phishing and non phishing) . The findings from the study show that participants, generally, found it difficult to detect modern phishing email attacks. Saying that, participants were alert to the spelling mistakes of the older phishing email attacks, sensitive information being requested from them and any slight change to what they were normally used to from an email. Moreover, we have found that people were not confident, worried and often dissatisfied with the current technologies available to protect them against phishing emails. In terms of trust, these feelings alerted us to the increasing severity of the phishing attack situation and just how vulnerable society has become/ still is. Journal Article SN Computer Science 3 2 Springer Science and Business Media LLC 2662-995X 2661-8907 Phishing email attack; COVID-19; Cyber security; Human factors 23 2 2022 2022-02-23 10.1007/s42979-022-01069-1 COLLEGE NANME Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy COLLEGE CODE CSSP Swansea University 2022-11-10T14:49:08.1686241 2022-11-10T14:43:58.0428924 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Social Sciences - Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy Fiona Carroll 0000-0002-9967-2207 1 John Ayooluwa Adejobi 2 Reza Montasari 0000-0001-7136-6753 3 61874__25725__0a30749a7c2f4afcb5141021ae3bce92.pdf 61874.pdf 2022-11-10T14:46:34.0062846 Output 985501 application/pdf Version of Record true © The Author(s) 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License true eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
title How Good Are We at Detecting a Phishing Attack? Investigating the Evolving Phishing Attack Email and Why It Continues to Successfully Deceive Society
spellingShingle How Good Are We at Detecting a Phishing Attack? Investigating the Evolving Phishing Attack Email and Why It Continues to Successfully Deceive Society
Reza Montasari
title_short How Good Are We at Detecting a Phishing Attack? Investigating the Evolving Phishing Attack Email and Why It Continues to Successfully Deceive Society
title_full How Good Are We at Detecting a Phishing Attack? Investigating the Evolving Phishing Attack Email and Why It Continues to Successfully Deceive Society
title_fullStr How Good Are We at Detecting a Phishing Attack? Investigating the Evolving Phishing Attack Email and Why It Continues to Successfully Deceive Society
title_full_unstemmed How Good Are We at Detecting a Phishing Attack? Investigating the Evolving Phishing Attack Email and Why It Continues to Successfully Deceive Society
title_sort How Good Are We at Detecting a Phishing Attack? Investigating the Evolving Phishing Attack Email and Why It Continues to Successfully Deceive Society
author_id_str_mv e420369ac98aaaa7f39248e39a847af1
author_id_fullname_str_mv e420369ac98aaaa7f39248e39a847af1_***_Reza Montasari
author Reza Montasari
author2 Fiona Carroll
John Ayooluwa Adejobi
Reza Montasari
format Journal article
container_title SN Computer Science
container_volume 3
container_issue 2
publishDate 2022
institution Swansea University
issn 2662-995X
2661-8907
doi_str_mv 10.1007/s42979-022-01069-1
publisher Springer Science and Business Media LLC
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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hierarchy_top_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Social Sciences - Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Social Sciences - Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy
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description Phishing attacks are on the increase. The fact that our ways of living, studying and working have drastically changed as a result of the COVID pandemic (i.e., almost everything being done online) has created many new cyber security concerns. In particular, with the move to remote working, the number of phishing emails threatening employees has increased. The 2020 Phishing Attack Landscape Report (Greathorn: 2020 Phishing attack landscape. https://info.greathorn.com/report-2020-phishing-attack-landscape/, 2020) highlights a sharp increase in the frequency of attempted phishing attacks. In this paper, we are interested in how the phishing email attack has evolved to this very threatening state. In detail, we explore the current phishing attack characteristics especially the growing challenges that have emerged as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper documents a study that presented test participants with five different categories of emails (including phishing and non phishing) . The findings from the study show that participants, generally, found it difficult to detect modern phishing email attacks. Saying that, participants were alert to the spelling mistakes of the older phishing email attacks, sensitive information being requested from them and any slight change to what they were normally used to from an email. Moreover, we have found that people were not confident, worried and often dissatisfied with the current technologies available to protect them against phishing emails. In terms of trust, these feelings alerted us to the increasing severity of the phishing attack situation and just how vulnerable society has become/ still is.
published_date 2022-02-23T04:21:02Z
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