It’s not just staff who trust what look like official messages

Researchers assessed students’ susceptibility to email fraud to find that a message purporting to be about exam timetables was most likely to be opened. “This email likely succeeded because it was both relevant and salient, and instilled fear in participants as the email required urgent attention.”

There was no distinction between genders, IT competence or students’ level of trust in the internet.  However international students and first-years were more susceptible.

The survey was conducted at ANU – where a staffer innocently opening an email about a vague campus meeting was enough for hackers to access decades of individuals’ records.

* Roderic Broadhurst, Katie Skinner, Nicholas Sifniotis, Bryan Matamoros-Macias and Yuguang Ipsen, “Phishing risks in a university student community,” Australian Institute of Criminology