A survey study evaluating Internet users’ proneness to fall prey to social engineering attacks

This research evaluated the Internet users’ proneness to fall prey to five most common types of social engineering attacks which are domain spoofing, email spoofing, search engine phishing, SMS phishing, and social media phishing. 350 volunteer participants participating in this research were presented with simulated images prepared by taking into account the social engineering attack that has taken place in recent years. Some of the images were legit and some of them were not. Participants were asked to identify these simulated scenarios as legit or cyber-attack. By utilizing the descriptive statistics techniques, this study reports the responses of the participants. This research presents important findings by showing which types of Internet users are more likely to be victim of which types of social engineering attacks. This research findings will benefit those interested in taking action against social engineering attacks.