EAGER: Investigating Elderly Computer Users' Susceptibility to Phishing

EAGER：调查老年计算机用户对网络钓鱼的敏感性

• 批准号: 1624149
• 负责人: Chuan Yue
• 金额: $ 10.94万
• 依托单位: Colorado School of Mines
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-08-21 至 2017-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1624149&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EAGER; Investigating; Elderly; Computer; Users; EAGER; Investigating; Elderly; Computer; Users

One of the most severe and challenging threats to Internet security and privacy is phishing, which uses fake websites to steal users' online identities and sensitive information. Existing studies have evaluated younger users' susceptibility to phishing attacks, but have not paid sufficient attention to elderly users' susceptibility to phishing in realistic environments. As the elderly population in the United States and the world continues to grow rapidly, the elderly Internet user population also continues to grow, and seniors have become very attractive targets for online fraud. Traditional forms of phishing have been prevalent for over a decade; in contrast, web single sign-on phishing is a more modern strategy, with unique characteristics that make it more profitable, insidious, and harder to detect than traditional phishing. The goal of this project is to systematically compare younger and older computer users' susceptibility to both the traditional and the newly emergent web single sign-on phishing. We build a comprehensive computer testbed that measures phishing susceptibility in a realistic environment. We hypothesize that older adults will differ from younger adults in terms of their susceptibility to both types of phishing, and that this susceptibility can be explained by differences in cognitive abilities, specifically executive functioning and decision-making skills. The results of this project will advance our knowledge on how and why elderly users may fall victim to phishing, and will provide a solid basis for researchers to further design effective mechanisms to protect elderly users against phishing from both technical and cognitive perspectives.

网络钓鱼是对互联网安全和隐私的最严重和最具挑战性的威胁之一，该网络钓鱼使用假网站来窃取用户的在线身份和敏感信息。现有的研究评估了年轻用户对网络钓鱼攻击的敏感性，但尚未充分关注老年用户在现实环境中对网络钓鱼的敏感性。 随着美国和世界的老年人口继续迅速增长，老年互联网用户人口也在不断增长，而老年人已成为在线欺诈的非常有吸引力的目标。十多年来，传统的网络钓鱼形式一直很普遍。相比之下，网络单签名网络钓鱼是一种更现代的策略，具有独特的特征，使其比传统的网络钓鱼更具盈利，阴险和难以检测。该项目的目的是系统地比较年轻和年长的计算机用户对传统和新出现的Web单签名网络钓鱼的敏感性。我们构建了一个全面的计算机测试台，该测试台可在现实的环境中衡量网络钓鱼的敏感性。 我们假设老年人在对两种类型的网络钓鱼的敏感性方面将与年轻人有所不同，并且这种敏感性可以通过认知能力的差异，特别是执行功能和决策技巧来解释。该项目的结果将促进我们关于如何以及为什么老年用户可能成为网络钓鱼的受害者的知识，并为研究人员提供了进一步设计有效机制的扎实基础，以保护老年用户从技术和认知角度均可免受网络钓鱼的侵害。