Online Security - Educating Consumers From Email-Based Attacks
Email-based attacks are one of the most effective way cybercriminals use to obtain sensitive information from their target . A certain study conducted that , email message trick are extremely effective because a large number of people around the world cannot identify a sophisticated phishing email . This is because phishers are exceptional in imitating a business to trick their victim into giving out personal information . They usually target clients of reputable banks and online payment services to obtain bank details and financial information .
Conducted Phishing Email Experiment
In line with this , experts conducted an experiment in which a number of respondents were asked to spot some of the most common phishing scams from 38 emails laid before them . Half of the emails are legitimate messages and the other half were fraudulent emails . The respondents were then asked if they consider a certain email as a scam , what security measure they should perform if they were right , how certain they were with their decision and what they believe the effect would be if they became a victim of the phishing attack .
Although 75 % of the phishing links were not clicked , the success rate of the study was only just over 50 %. This is because several cautious respondents did not check the emails one by one and considered all 38 emails as phishing scams immediately . Which results in getting the majority of the phishing emails right . Experts say that those who made that move are people who are biased to think that all emails are phishing attacks and aren ’ t knowledgeable enough to differentiate a phishing email from a legitimate one .
This concludes that consumer education regarding phishing emails is significant in order to identify a phishing attack and its dire effect in real life situation . Experts suggest embedded training to tracked and determine the level of awareness of the general population on phishing attacks . Embedded training involves sending out bogus emails that educate a user about that particular type of scam message once clicked .
If you have any comments or questions regarding cybercrimes and how to improve the level of your security , please contact us .