A study of phishing emails and their ability to mislead recipients depending on age and education level

Abstract: Today, virtually every individual with access to an Internet connection also has a personal email address. This has made it easier for companies, for example, to market their products to customers. Company employees also often have access to work emails, where information about upcoming meetings, new tasks, etc. is posted. Up to 45% of today’s email traffic is made up of fraudulent emails that try to trick the recipient into providing personal data or clicking on a web link that then installs malicious software on the computer or mobile phone. This thesis examines how the recipient’s age group and level of education affect their ability to identify fraudulent emails. The results show that this ability decreases significantly with increasing age. In contrast, level of education was not a significant factor affecting this ability.