Empirical Benefits of Training to Phishing Susceptibility

Social engineering continues to be the most worrisome vulnerability to organizational networks, data, and services. The most successful form of social engineering is the practice of phishing. In the last several years, a multitude of phishing variations have been defined including pharming, spear phishing, and whaling. While each has a specific reason for its success, they all rely on a user failing to exercise due diligence and responsibility. In this paper, we report on a recent phishing experiments where the effects of training were evaluated as well as gathering demographic data to explore the susceptibility of given groups.