Forest or trees? Evidence for global processing via an information board study into cues utilised in phishing identification

We examined the patterns of cues people utilised as they attempted to classify emails as legitimate or phishing via a novel approach – an information board study. In this paradigm, participants had to click on email elements to examine them, revealing which cues are utilised in the decision-making process as well as viewing duration. An online email classification task (87 Ps) was presented, including a between-subjects’ manipulation of cognitive load. This revealed consistent patterns of behaviour associated with identification of legitimate emails such as more time spent looking at signoffs aiding in identification, whereas more time spent looking at logo and greetings was associated with worse performance. We also found no-load condition participants with lower intuitive decision-making style scores identified more phishing emails correctly suggesting elaborative processing as an important determinant of good decision-making. However, none of; cyber security experience, impulsivity, and checking the sender’s address corresponded to higher rates of phishing email identification. Furthermore, we found no behavioural, cue-based patterns associated with correct decisions for phishing emails. We speculate that this decision-making process may be based on a global, holistic interpretation of the stimuli. This has important implications for awareness campaigns suggesting a more holistic approach to email evaluation.