Tom Cuchta, Brian Blackwood, Thomas R. Devine, Robert J. Niichel
{"title":"Human risk factors in cybersecurity","authors":"Tom Cuchta, Brian Blackwood, Thomas R. Devine, Robert J. Niichel","doi":"10.1075/is.22053.cuc","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article presents an experimental analysis of several cybersecurity risks affecting the human attack surface of Fairmont State University, a mid-size state university. We consider two social engineering experiments: a phishing email barrage and a targeted spearphishing campaign. In the phishing experiment, a total of 4,769 students, faculty, and staff on campus were targeted by 90,000 phishing emails. Throughout these experiments, we explored the effectiveness of three types of phishing awareness training. Our results show that phishing emails that make it through IT’s defenses pose a clear and present threat to large educational organizations. Moreover, we found that simple, visual, instructional guides are more effective training tools than long documents or interactive training.","PeriodicalId":46494,"journal":{"name":"Interaction Studies","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Interaction Studies","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1075/is.22053.cuc","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This article presents an experimental analysis of several cybersecurity risks affecting the human attack surface of Fairmont State University, a mid-size state university. We consider two social engineering experiments: a phishing email barrage and a targeted spearphishing campaign. In the phishing experiment, a total of 4,769 students, faculty, and staff on campus were targeted by 90,000 phishing emails. Throughout these experiments, we explored the effectiveness of three types of phishing awareness training. Our results show that phishing emails that make it through IT’s defenses pose a clear and present threat to large educational organizations. Moreover, we found that simple, visual, instructional guides are more effective training tools than long documents or interactive training.
期刊介绍:
This international peer-reviewed journal aims to advance knowledge in the growing and strongly interdisciplinary area of Interaction Studies in biological and artificial systems. Understanding social behaviour and communication in biological and artificial systems requires knowledge of evolutionary, developmental and neurobiological aspects of social behaviour and communication; the embodied nature of interactions; origins and characteristics of social and narrative intelligence; perception, action and communication in the context of dynamic and social environments; social learning.