Teaching Phishing-Security: Which Way is Best?

Overview & Synopsis

Ever more processes of our daily lives are shifting into the digital realm. Consequently, users face a variety of IT-security threats with possibly severe ramifications. It has been shown that technical measures alone are insufficient to counter all threats. For instance, it takes technical measures on average 32 h before identifying and blocking phishing websites. Therefore, teaching users how to identify malicious websites is of utmost importance, if they are to be protected at all times. A number of ways to deliver the necessary knowledge to users exist. Among the most broadly used are instructor-based, computer-based and text-based training. We compare all three formats in the security context, or to be more precise in the context of anti-phishing training.