Exposing generational and gender gap in phishing awareness among young adults: A survey experiment

Abstract

Phishing is one of the most common cybersecurity attacks that target end users. Increasing user awareness of such a social engineering approach is a good, if not the best, countermeasure of phishing. While many have tried to educate users on this matter, such interventions may not work equally good for all demographic groups. In this paper, we conducted an experimental study involving 247 participants to see if a small intervention in the form of educational infographics can improve phishing awareness among young adults and if the effects were comparable for both males and females. It is apparent from the results of this study that men and women differ significantly in their knowledge of cybersecurity, particularly in regard to phishing, and that some cybersecurity education might not be effective for women. In addition, we found that the older millennials in their 30s had a much better phishing awareness than the younger generations (i.e., the 20s and the teenagers), with or without any interventions. Further research is required to figure out the factors leading to these differences in order to prevent cybercriminals from preying on one gender over the other, as well as to develop a good cybersecurity education approach that works to raise cybersecurity awareness of users regardless of their age or gender.