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Abstract

The threat of phishing scams is increasing, with more deceptive techniques targeting victims. Crucially, this is highlighted by the evolution of phishing scams to exploit social media platforms including Instagram. Instagram is a popular social media platform which acquires 200 million monthly active users (Dixon, 2024). As users may be unaware of the dangers on Instagram, individuals are unable to protect themselves and stay safe online. Literature (Ferguson, 2005: as cited by Vishwanath, 2015; Gavett et al., 2017; Heartfield et al., 2016; Shaikh et al., 2016; Sheng et al., 2010) suggests there are conflicted opinions on the usefulness of phishing education, impact on training engagement and retention due to the training type (Jampen et al., 2020; Kumaraguru et al., 2010; Vishwanath, 2015), and the importance of information relevance (Kassicieh at el., 2017: as cited by Grobler et al., 2021). However, there is a lack of research exploring the impact of phishing education and identification of phishing scams on social media - specifically Instagram.
Through the completion of an online survey distributed through snowball sampling, 73 Instagram users' opinions on phishing scams and education around anti-phishing techniques were collected. These responses were analysed using descriptive data, linear regression and emergent content analysis to conclude whether phishing education is useful in the opinion of users and what factors would increase or decrease user engagement.
Results suggest that phishing education is a need for phishing mitigation as it increases a user's digital literacy which users believe is useful to their online safety in relation to Instagram. Participants who have previously completed anti-phishing training concluded it was valuable to their understanding regardless of the time since training. However, the main discouraging factors for phishing education are time constraints and the belief training will be boring and non-beneficial. Implications such as compulsory training and use of different educational methods are discussed.

Course: Criminology and Cybercrime - BSc - U2714PYC

Date Deposited: 2024-11-21

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis14581.html