In order to stop ransomware and malware scams that are currently all over the world, computer scientists are trying to find out why these attacks are successful in the first place. The research findings will be used to develop the next generation of email filters that will better at identifying and defending against cyber attacks.
To look at the characteristics of phishing emails, the research team used publicly available emails from Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. They used natural language generation (replicates human language patterns) to create fake phishing emails from real emails. Then, they planted certain signals like repetitive sentences, fake names, and incoherent flow into these emails, and used them for the test group.
The participants, 34 of them, were given eight Clinton and eight Palin emails, four of which were fake and four of which were real. They were then asked to identify which emails were real and explain their reasoning. Here are some of the most important results of the study:
- Using more complex grammar fooled 74% of participants;
- Only 50% of the participants noticed/mentioned the fake names;
- Only six participants could show the full header of an email;
- Education, experience and gender made no difference in the ability to detect the deceptive emails.
What these results do is offer ideas on how to improve IT training and email filters. Until they are actually developed though, here is what you can do to protect yourself against fake emails:
- Always look closely at the sender of the email and the full header;
- Hover a mouse over any potential fake, broken links in the body of the email;
- Think how long it has been since you had contact with the sender;
- Consider the context of the email itself.
Source:
University of Houston via ScienceDaily (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170516153932.htm)
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