Investigating phishing susceptibility—an analysis of neural measures

Abstract

Phishing is an attempt to acquire sensitive information from a user by malicious means. The losses due to phishing have exceeded a trillion dollars globally. In investigating phishing susceptibility, literature has largely examined structural and individual characteristics. Very little attention has been paid to neural measures within phishing contexts. In this paper, we explore the role of cognitive responses and correlated brain responses in phishing context. Such research is useful because a deeper understanding of persuasion techniques can inform the design of effective countermeasures for detecting and blocking phishing messages.