Phishing emails typically attempt to persuade recipients to reveal private or confidential information (e.g., passwords or bank details). Interaction with such emails places individuals at risk of financial loss and identity theft. We present an ongoing study using eye tracking metrics and varying interface components to assess users’ ability to spot simulated phishing attempts. Findings seek to establish how users interact with email inbox interfaces and will inform future design of usable security tools.

Abstract Romance scams involve cybercriminals engineering a romantic relationship on online dating platforms for monetary gain. It is a cruel form of cybercrime whereby victims are left heartbroken, often facing financial ruin. We characterize the literary landscape on romance scams, advancing the understanding of researchers and practitioners by systematically reviewing and synthesizing contemporary qualitative and quantitative evidence. The systematic review establishes influencing factors of victimhood and explores countermeasures for mitigating romance scams. We searched 10 scholarly databases and websites using terms related to romance scams. The methodology followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines: a total of 279 papers were screened. One hundred seven papers were assessed for eligibility, and 53 were included in the final analysis. Three main contributions were identified: common profile features and techniques used by romance scammers, countermeasures for mitigating romance scams and factors predisposing an individual to become a scammer or a victim. Despite a growing corpus of literature, the total number of empirical or experimental examinations remained limited. The paper concludes with avenues for future research and victimhood intervention strategies for practitioners, law enforcement and the industry.

Application exceptions are anomalous events occurring within the application. These can be caused by common issues such as simple programming errors; however, they can also originate from the side-effects of a trial-and-error process used in active attacks. Utilising attacker-induced exceptions as a canary for intrusion detection has been demonstrated as a feasible technique for SQL injection detection, but this has not been applied to other types of attacks. This paper proposes an approach to consider attacker-induced application exceptions as attack canaries. The work is part of an ongoing investigation on integrating detective defences into applications through established development practices.