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Understanding scam victims: seven principles for systems security

Published: 01 March 2011 Publication History

Abstract

Effective countermeasures depend on first understanding how users naturally fall victim to fraudsters.

References

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Abagnale, F.W. The Art of the Steal: How to Protect Yourself and Your Business from Fraud. Broadway Books, New York, 2001.
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Cialdini, R.B. Influence: Science and Practice, Fifth Edition. Pearson, Boston, MA, 2009; (First Edition 1985).
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Lea et al. The Psychology of Scams: Provoking and Committing Errors of Judgement. Technical Report OFT1070. University of Exeter School of Psychology. Office of Fair Trading, London, U.K., May 2009.
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Loewenstein, G. Out of control: Visceral influences on behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 65, 3 (Mar. 1996), 272--292.
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Macknik, S.L., King, M., Randi, J., Robbins, A., Teller Thompson, J., and Martinez-Conde, S. Attention and awareness in stage magic: Turning tricks into research. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 11 (Nov. 2008), 871--879.
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Maurer, D.W. The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man. Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1940.
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Mitnick, K.D. The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 2002.
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Simon, H.A. Rational choice and the structure of the environment. Psychological Review 63, 2 (Mar. 1956), 129--138.
[9]
Stajano, F. and Wilson, P. Understanding Scam Victims: Seven Principles for Systems Security. Technical Report UCAM-CL-TR-754. University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, Cambridge, U.K, 2009.
[10]
Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science 185, 4157 (Sept. 1974), 1124--1131.

Cited By

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  • (2025)Unlocking the Human Element in Cybercrime: Exploring the Realities of VictimsCybercrime Unveiled: Technologies for Analysing Legal Complexity10.1007/978-3-031-80557-8_2(25-40)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2025
  • (2024)Theorizing Deception: A Scoping Review of Theory in Research on Dark Patterns and Deceptive DesignExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3650997(1-7)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • (2024)Lifting the Grey Curtain: Analyzing the Ecosystem of Android Scam AppsIEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing10.1109/TDSC.2023.332920521:4(3406-3421)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
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Published In

cover image Communications of the ACM
Communications of the ACM  Volume 54, Issue 3
March 2011
116 pages
ISSN:0001-0782
EISSN:1557-7317
DOI:10.1145/1897852
Issue’s Table of Contents
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 March 2011
Published in CACM Volume 54, Issue 3

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Cited By

View all
  • (2025)Unlocking the Human Element in Cybercrime: Exploring the Realities of VictimsCybercrime Unveiled: Technologies for Analysing Legal Complexity10.1007/978-3-031-80557-8_2(25-40)Online publication date: 12-Feb-2025
  • (2024)Theorizing Deception: A Scoping Review of Theory in Research on Dark Patterns and Deceptive DesignExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3650997(1-7)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • (2024)Lifting the Grey Curtain: Analyzing the Ecosystem of Android Scam AppsIEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing10.1109/TDSC.2023.332920521:4(3406-3421)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
  • (2024)Internet-Based Social Engineering Psychology, Attacks, and Defenses: A SurveyProceedings of the IEEE10.1109/JPROC.2024.3379855112:3(210-246)Online publication date: Mar-2024
  • (2024)The Impact of Organisational Culture on Employees' Information Security Behaviours2024 4th International Multidisciplinary Information Technology and Engineering Conference (IMITEC)10.1109/IMITEC60221.2024.10850965(446-451)Online publication date: 27-Nov-2024
  • (2024)Quantifying Psychological Sophistication of Malicious EmailsIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2024.351460312(187512-187535)Online publication date: 2024
  • (2024)Getting users to click: a content analysis of phishers’ tactics and techniques in mobile instant messaging phishingInformation & Computer Security10.1108/ICS-11-2023-0206Online publication date: 31-Jan-2024
  • (2024)The effects of persuasion principles on perceived honesty during shoulder surfing attacksInformation & Computer Security10.1108/ICS-07-2023-0118Online publication date: 8-Aug-2024
  • (2024)The unpredictability of phishing susceptibility: results from a repeated measures experimentJournal of Cybersecurity10.1093/cybsec/tyae02110:1Online publication date: 14-Nov-2024
  • (2024)Understanding the human element in scams: a multidisciplinary approachJournal of Information Technology Case and Application Research10.1080/15228053.2024.2439192(1-16)Online publication date: 18-Dec-2024
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