Fishing for phishers: improving Internet users’ sensitivity to visual deception cues to prevent electronic fraud

dc.contributor.authorMoreno Fernández, María Manuela
dc.contributor.authorBlanco Bregón, Fernando
dc.contributor.authorGaraizar, Pablo
dc.contributor.authorMatute, Helena
dc.date.accessioned2026-03-06T15:56:21Z
dc.date.available2026-03-06T15:56:21Z
dc.date.issued2017-04-01
dc.date.updated2026-03-06T15:56:21Z
dc.description.abstractPhishing is a form of electronic fraud in which attackers attempt to steal sensitive information by posing as a legitimate entity. To maintain the attack unnoticed, phishers typically use fake sites that accurately mimic real ones. However, there are usually subtle visual discrepancies between these spoof sites and their legitimate counterparts that may help Internet users to identify their deceptive nature. Among all the potential visual cues, we choose to focus on typography, because it is often hard for phishers to use exactly the same font as in the original website. Thus, Experiment 1 assessed the effectiveness of visual discrimination training to help people detect typographical discrepancies between fake and legitimate websites. Results showed higher sensitivity to differences when undergraduate students were previously trained with easier versions of the discrimination task (i.e., involving more noticeable differences in typography) than when they were trained with the difficult target discrimination from the start (easy-to-hard effect). These results were replicated with a broader and more representative sample of anonymous Internet users in Experiment 2. Implications for the design of strategies to prevent electronic fraud are discussed.en
dc.description.sponsorshipSupport for this research was provided by Dirección General de Investigación of the Spanish Government (Grant No. PSI2016- 78818-R)en
dc.identifier.citationMoreno-Fernández, M. M., Blanco, F., Garaizar, P., & Matute, H. (2017). Fishing for phishers: improving Internet users’ sensitivity to visual deception cues to prevent electronic fraud. Computers in Human Behavior, 69, 421-436. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.CHB.2016.12.044
dc.identifier.doi10.1016/J.CHB.2016.12.044
dc.identifier.issn0747-5632
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14454/5357
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherElsevier Ltd
dc.rights© 2016 The Authors
dc.subject.otherDiscrimination learning
dc.subject.otherEasy-to-hard effect
dc.subject.otherHuman-computer interaction
dc.subject.otherInternet security
dc.subject.otherPhishing
dc.subject.otherVisual discrimination
dc.titleFishing for phishers: improving Internet users’ sensitivity to visual deception cues to prevent electronic frauden
dc.typejournal article
dcterms.accessRightsopen access
oaire.citation.endPage436
oaire.citation.startPage421
oaire.citation.titleComputers in Human Behavior
oaire.citation.volume69
oaire.licenseConditionhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
oaire.versionVoR
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