This chapter will begin with a brief review of the literature that highlights what psychology research and practice can offer to cybersecurity education. The authors draw on their wide-ranging inter-disciplinary teaching experience and in this chapter they discuss their observations gained from teaching psychological principles and methods to undergraduate and postgraduate cybersecurity students. The authors pay special attention to the consideration of the characteristics of cybersecurity students, so that psychology is taught in a way that is accessible and engaging. Finally, the authors offer some practical suggestions for academics to help them incorporate psychology into the cybersecurity curriculum

Hodge, S.

McAlaney, John

Taylor, Jacqui

Thackray, Helen

The internet provides an ever-expanding, valuable resource for entertainment, communication, and commerce. However, this comes with the simultaneous advancement and sophistication of cyber-attacks, which have serious implications on both a personal and commercial level, as well as within the criminal justice system. Psychologically, such attacks offer an intriguing, under-exploited arena for the understanding of the decision-making processes leading to online fraud victimisation. In this chapter, the authors focus on approaches taken to understand response behaviour surrounding phishing emails. The chapter outlines how approaches from industry and academic research might work together to more effectively understand and potentially tackle the persistent threat of email fraud. In doing this, the authors address: alternative methodological approaches taken to understand susceptibility; key insights drawn from each; how useful these are in working towards preventative security measures; and the usability of each approach. It is hoped that these can contribute to collaborative solutions

Jones, Helen

Towse, John

University of Dundee Online Publications

Examinations of Email Fraud Susceptibility:Perspectives from Academic Research and Industry Practice

With the advancement of technology and Internet connectivity, the potential for alternative methods of research is vast. Whilst pen-and paper questionnaires and laboratory studies still prevail within most scientific disciplines, many researchers are selecting more contemporary methods for undertaking research. These include; online questionnaires, Smartphone-enabled applications (Apps), and online data mining, of which many can offer alternative research paradigms to that of traditional methodology. This chapter will provide an overview of a number of key online research methodologies such as those outlined previously, to highlight their role in scientific investigation. In particular, it will be suggested how these may function to enhance our understanding of psychological issues, particularly within areas relating to cybersecurity. Indeed, based on the prevalence of deviance which takes place in online environments, this calls for a focus upon the online arena itself as a platform to undertake research of this nature. In this way, we are ensuring our methods are ecologically valid as well as developing understanding of the digital skills necessary for practitioners to target cybersecurity-related issues. The majority of the methods described in this chapter fall under the umbrella of Internet-mediated research (IMR), in which the collection of research data is made possible by being connected through the Internet, to a functional online environment (e.g., online survey software, website, online forum, social networking site). The British Psychological Society (BPS) in their Ethical Guidelines for Internet-mediated Research define IMR as “any research involving the remote acquisition of data from or about human participants using the internet and its associated technologies.” (BPS, 2017, pp3). In this sense, these specific methods would not exist in this form, in the absence of the Internet. As such, the advancement of Internet functionality and connectivity have been fundamental for the development of research methodology. BPS (2017) go on to define IMR further by making the distinction between reactive and non-reactive methodologies, whereby a reactive approach consists participants interacting with materials (e.g., online questionnaires, interviews) and a non-reactive one whereby researcher make use of data which is collected unobtrusively (data mining, observations). Online methods have been particularly popular for communication researchers within areas such as interpersonal, organisational or mass communication (Wright, 2005), although are also widely used in a range of disciplines. The next section focuses on online questionnaires as one form of IMR, with an account of their relative strengths and drawbacks as a data collection tool. <br/

KAYE, LINDA

Edge Hill University Research Information Repository

Online Research Methods for Cybersecurity Research

This chapter begins with a brief review of the literature that highlights what psychology research and practice can offer to cybersecurity education. The authors draw on their wide-ranging inter-disciplinary teaching experience, and in this chapter, they discuss their observations gained from teaching psychological principles and methods to undergraduate and postgraduate cybersecurity students. The authors pay special attention to the consideration of the characteristics of cybersecurity students so that psychology is taught in a way that is accessible and engaging. Finally, the authors offer some practical suggestions for academics to help them incorporate psychology into the cybersecurity curriculum

Taylor-Jackson, Jacqui (R19920)

Hodge, Sarah E.

Western Sydney ResearchDirect

Introducing psychological concepts and methods to cybersecurity students

Understanding online decision making is becoming increasingly important within cybersecurity concerns given the mass information and access available to the general population. In previous generations, the Internet was primarily inhabited by computer scientists or programmers. However the evolution of Web 2.0 and its capabilities of permitting user-generated platforms such as social networking sites, has subsequently meant access and content-generation is available to the masses. As such, the monitoring and auditing of online content is a substantial task, resulting in much online content, regardless of its authenticity, being accessible to the masses. Resultantly, online users face a wealth of content, upon which they are required to make a number of decisions (e.g., is this content harmful?; should I trust this website?; how secure is this online payment system?; who is the source of this content and are they trustworthy? etc). Understanding online decision making is therefore becoming an increasingly demanding issue and requires exploration in the context of its relationship to cybersecurity. As an example, ongoing work is being invested in respect of fake news detection as well as preventative measures for this (Farajtabar et al., 2017; Shu, Silva, Wang, Tang &amp; Liu, 2017). The recency of this agenda highlights the currency of these issues in contemporary society. Moreover, the accessibility afforded by online technologies has been shown to offer numerous benefits to individuals ranging from increasing educational provision (Attwell, 2007; Cook, Levinson, Garside, Dupras, Erwin, &amp; Montori, 2008) to improving physical and mental health support (Eysenbach, 2001; Kalichman, Benotsch, Weinhardt, Austin, Luke, &amp; Cherry, 2003). However, the growth in Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) has also created real challenges for society; in particular, the Internet has become an important resource for ‘convincing’ or persuading a person to make a decision to do (or not do) something. Although concepts such as persuasion and decision making refer to distinct processes this Chapter considers the interplay between these related concepts. This Chapter will begin by defining decision making and outlining some evidence surrounding decision making across a range of online contexts. The second half of the chapter considers related theories of persuasion and attitude and behaviour change and discusses the factors that have been shown to influence attitude and behaviour change online. The chapter concludes by acknowledging that research investigating online decision making is broad in scope and often tends to have a different focus to offline research

WALL, HELEN

Online Decision Making: Online influence and Implications for Cyber Security.

Towse, John Nicholas

Lancaster E-Prints

Examinations of email fraud susceptibility:Perspectives from academic research and industry practice

The internet provides an ever-expanding, valuable resource for entertainment, communication, and commerce. However, this comes with the simultaneous advancement and sophistication of cyber-attacks, which have serious implications on both a personal and commercial level, as well as within the criminal justice system. Psychologically, such attacks offer an intriguing, under-exploited arena for the understanding of the decision-making processes leading to online fraud victimisation. In this chapter, the authors focus on approaches taken to understand response behaviour surrounding phishing emails. The chapter outlines how approaches from industry and academic research might work together to more effectively understand and potentially tackle the persistent threat of email fraud. In doing this, the authors address alternative methodological approaches taken to understand susceptibility, key insights drawn from each, how useful these are in working towards preventative security measures, and the usability of each approach.  It is hoped that these can contribute to collaborative solutions

Jones, Helen S

CLoK

Examinations of Email Fraud Susceptibility: Perspectives from academic research and industry practise

Bournemouth University Research Online

Introducing Psychological Concepts and Methods to Cybersecurity Students

Across many online contexts, internet users are required to make judgments of trustworthiness in the systems or other users that they are connecting with. But how can a user know that the interactions they engage in are legitimate? In cases where trust is manipulated, there can be severe consequences for the user both economically and psychologically. In this chapter, the authors outline key psychological literature to date that has addressed the question of how trust develops in online environments. Specifically, three use cases in which trust relationships emerge are discussed: crowdfunding, online health forums, and online dating. By including examples of different types of online interaction, the authors aim to demonstrate the need for advanced security measures that ensure valid trust judgments and minimise the risk of fraud victimisation

Moncur, Wendy

The Role of Psychology in Understanding Online Trust

The role of psychology in understanding online trust

Jones, Helen S.

University of Strathclyde Institutional Repository

https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/74796/1/Jones_Moncur_IGI_2018_The_role_of_psychology_in_understanding.pdf

Introducing Psychological Concepts and Methods to Cybersecurity Students

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

University of Dundee Online Publications

Edge Hill University Research Information Repository

Western Sydney ResearchDirect

Edge Hill University Research Information Repository

Lancaster E-Prints

CLoK

Bournemouth University Research Online

University of Dundee Online Publications

CLoK

University of Strathclyde Institutional Repository