The roles of phishing knowledge, cue utilization, and decision styles in phishing email detection

Daniel Sturman; Elliot A Bell; Jaime C Auton; Georgia R Breakey; Mark W Wiggins

doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2024.104309

The roles of phishing knowledge, cue utilization, and decision styles in phishing email detection

Appl Ergon. 2024 May 9:119:104309. doi: 10.1016/j.apergo.2024.104309. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Daniel Sturman¹, Elliot A Bell², Jaime C Auton², Georgia R Breakey², Mark W Wiggins³

Affiliations

¹ The University of Adelaide, SA, Australia. Electronic address: daniel.sturman@adelaide.edu.au.
² The University of Adelaide, SA, Australia.
³ Macquarie University, NSW, Australia.

PMID: 38729025
DOI: 10.1016/j.apergo.2024.104309

Abstract

This study investigated the roles of phishing knowledge, cue utilization, and decision styles in contributing to phishing email detection. Participants (N = 145) completed an online email sorting task, and measures of phishing knowledge, email decision styles, cue utilization, and email security awareness. Cue utilization was the only factor that uniquely predicted the capacity to discriminate phishing from genuine emails. Phishing knowledge was associated with greater phishing detection and a bias towards classifying all emails as phishing. A preference for intuitive decision making predicted lower detection of phishing emails, driven by a greater tendency to classify emails as genuine. These findings support the proposition that cue utilization is a distinct cognitive process that enables expert performance. The outcomes indicate that, in addition to increasing phishing knowledge and developing safe behavioral patterns, anti-phishing training needs to provide opportunities for trainees to develop meaningful cue associations.

Keywords: Cue utilization; Cybersecurity; Information processing; Phishing; Visual search.