The effects of persuasion principles on perceived honesty during shoulder surfing attacks
Abstract
Purpose
This study aimed to investigate how honest participants perceived an attacker to be during shoulder surfing scenarios that varied in terms of which Principle of Persuasion in Social Engineering (PPSE) was used, whether perceived honesty changed as scenarios progressed, and whether any changes were greater in some scenarios than others.
Design/methodology/approach
Participants read one of six shoulder surfing scenarios. Five depicted an attacker using one of the PPSEs. The other depicted an attacker using as few PPSEs as possible, which served as a control condition. Participants then rated perceived attacker honesty.
Findings
The results revealed honesty ratings in each condition were equal during the beginning of the conversation, participants in each condition perceived the attacker to be honest during the beginning of the conversation, perceived attacker honesty declined when the attacker requested the target perform an action that would afford shoulder surfing, perceived attacker honesty declined more when the Distraction and Social Proof PPSEs were used, participants perceived the attacker to be dishonest when making such requests using the Distraction and Social Proof PPSEs and perceived attacker honesty did not change when the attacker used the target’s computer.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this experiment is the first to investigate how persuasion tactics affect perceptions of attackers during shoulder surfing attacks. These results have important implications for shoulder surfing prevention training programs and penetration tests.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under award number 1723765. Opinions, findings, and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of NSF.
Citation
Jones, K.S., Tornblad, M.K., Armstrong, M.E., Choi, J. and Siami Namin, A. (2024), "The effects of persuasion principles on perceived honesty during shoulder surfing attacks", Information and Computer Security, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/ICS-07-2023-0118
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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