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Phishing attacks are one of the trending cyber attacks that apply socially engineered messages that are communicated to people from professional hackers aiming at fooling users to reveal their sensitive information, the most popular…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2016-08-09 Adwan Yasin , Abdelmunem Abuhasan

We examined the influence of three social engineering strategies on users' judgments of how safe it is to click on a link in an email. The three strategies examined were authority, scarcity and social proof, and the emails were either…

Computers and Society · Computer Science 2016-06-06 Marcus Butavicius , Kathryn Parsons , Malcolm Pattinson , Agata McCormac

Phishing remains a critical cybersecurity threat, especially with the advent of large language models (LLMs) capable of generating highly convincing malicious content. Unlike earlier phishing attempts which are identifiable by grammatical…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-10-15 Deeksha Hareesha Kulal , Chidozie Princewill Arannonu , Afsah Anwar , Nidhi Rastogi , Quamar Niyaz

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…

Human-Computer Interaction · Computer Science 2023-05-29 Yasmeen Abdrabou , Felix Dietz , Ahmed Shams , Pascal Knierim , Yomna Abdelrahman , Ken Pfeuffer , Mariam Hassib , Florian Alt

This study extends the research of Ferreira and Teles (2019), who synthesized works by Cialdini (2007), Gragg (2003), and Stajano and Wilson (2011) to propose a unique list of persuasion principles in social engineering. While Ferreira and…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-04-22 Kalam Khadka

The emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) has heightened the threat of phishing emails by enabling the generation of highly targeted, personalized, and automated attacks. Traditionally, many phishing emails have been characterized by…

Phishing constitutes more than 90\% of successful cyberattacks globally, remaining one of the most persistent threats to organizational security. Despite organizations tripling their cybersecurity budgets between 2015 and 2025, the human…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-11-03 Rebeka Toth , Richard A. Dubniczky , Olga Limonova , Norbert Tihanyi

Phishing attacks pose a significant cybersecurity threat globally. This study investigates phishing susceptibility within the Pakistani population, examining the influence of demographic factors, technological aptitude and usage, previous…

Computers and Society · Computer Science 2025-10-13 Javara A. Bukhsh , Maya Daneva , Marten van Sinderen

Spam messes up users inbox, consumes resources and spread attacks like DDoS, MiM, Phishing etc., Phishing is a byproduct of email and causes financial loss to users and loss of reputation to financial institutions. In this paper we study…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2016-11-15 Cynthia Dhinakaran , Jae Kwang lee , Dhinaharan Nagamalai

SMS Phishing (also known as 'smishing') is a growing deceptive social engineering (SE) attack that leverages mobile SMS to conduct cybercrimes such as stealing sensitive information or spreading malware by tricking users into interacting…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2026-04-14 Mir Mehedi A. Pritom , Seyed Mohammad Sanjari , Maraz Mia , Ashfak Md Shibli , S M Mostaq Hossain , Muhammad Ismail , Shouhuai Xu

The never-ending barrage of malicious emails, such as spam and phishing, is of constant concern for users, who rely on countermeasures such as email filters to keep the intended recipient safe. Modern email filters, one of our few defence…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2024-10-16 Lucas Betts , Robert Biddle , Danielle Lottridge , Giovanni Russello

Phishing attacks have become an increasing threat to online users. Recent research has begun to focus on the factors that cause people to respond to them. Our study examines the correlation between the Big Five personality traits and email…

Human-Computer Interaction · Computer Science 2013-02-11 Tzipora Halevi , Jim Lewis , Nasir Memon

In this paper, we evaluate the capability of large language models to conduct personalized phishing attacks and compare their performance with human experts and AI models from last year. We include four email groups with a combined total of…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2024-12-03 Fred Heiding , Simon Lermen , Andrew Kao , Bruce Schneier , Arun Vishwanath

Most research into anti-phishing defence assumes that the mal-actor is attempting to harvest end-users' personally identifiable information or login credentials and, hence, focuses on detecting phishing websites. The defences for this type…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2022-04-28 Trevor Wood , Vitor Basto-Fernandes , Eerke Boiten , Iryna Yevseyeva

Every day, our inboxes are flooded with unsolicited emails, ranging between annoying spam to more subtle phishing scams. Unfortunately, despite abundant prior efforts proposing solutions achieving near-perfect accuracy, the reality is that…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-09-16 Luca Pajola , Eugenio Caripoti , Stefan Banzer , Simeone Pizzi , Mauro Conti , Giovanni Apruzzese

Phishing attacks remain a significant threat to modern cybersecurity, as they successfully deceive both humans and the defense mechanisms intended to protect them. Traditional detection systems primarily focus on email metadata that users…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-06-18 Even Eilertsen , Vasileios Mavroeidis , Gudmund Grov

Phishing, a prevalent cybercrime tactic for decades, remains a significant threat in today's digital world. By leveraging clever social engineering elements and modern technology, cybercrime targets many individuals, businesses, and…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-06-10 Het Patel , Umair Rehman , Farkhund Iqbal

Emails are used every day for communication, and many countries and organisations mostly use email for official communications. It is highly valued and recognised for confidential conversations and transactions in day-to-day business. The…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2023-12-08 Peace Nmachi Wosah

Phishing attacks, typically carried out by email, remain a significant cybersecurity threat with attackers creating legitimate-looking websites to deceive recipients into revealing sensitive information or executing harmful actions. In this…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-03-03 Wei Kang , Nan Wang , Jang Seung , Shuo Wang , Alsharif Abuadbba

Spear phishing is a widespread concern in the modern network security landscape, but there are few metrics that measure the extent to which reconnaissance is performed on phishing targets. Spear phishing emails closely match the…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2024-10-30 Michael C. Kotson , Alexia Schulz