Authors
Yasmeen Abdrabou, Felix Dietz, Ahmed Shams, Pascal Knierim, Yomna Abdelrahman, Ken Pfeuffer, Mariam Hassib, Florian Alt
Publication date
2023/5/26
Journal
arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.17044
Description
Users are the last line of defense as phishing emails pass filter mechanisms. At the same time, phishing emails are designed so that they are challenging to identify by users. To this end, attackers employ techniques, such as eliciting stress, targeting helpfulness, or exercising authority, due to which users often miss being manipulated out of malicious intent. This work builds on the assumption that manipulation techniques, even if going unnoticed by users, still lead to changes in their behavior. In this work, we present the outcomes of an online study in which we collected gaze and mouse movement data during an email sorting task. Our findings show that phishing emails lead to significant differences across behavioral features but depend on the nature of the email. We discuss how our findings can be leveraged to build security mechanisms protecting users and companies from phishing.
Total citations
Scholar articles