Assessing Anti-Phishing Awareness among Undergraduate Students in India

Fraudulent activities on the Internet, especially phishing, have grown to an unprecedented level. Phishing can result in identity theft, financial losses and can also clog an email server. Although a number of technologies related to counter-measures ranging from SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security) to web browser-based warnings have been explored, user awareness remains fundamental against any anti-phishing activity. With the growing unemployment in India, a very large amount of undergraduate students are at a risk of becoming an innocent prey of phishers offering lucrative jobs. This study was conducted to empirically investigate the incidence of undergraduate students becoming victims of phishing attacks in India. We simulated a scenario where students were required to visit a fake website and give details of personal login information. Students irrespective of their computer knowledge visited the phishing website ignoring the information given on the security bar in the web browser.