Cognitive rigidity in human- vs GenAI-generated spear phishing attacks
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2025-07-02
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en
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Phishing attacks are becoming more sophisticated since the rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). This study investigates the role of cognitive rigidity in consumer vulnerability to human- vs. GenAI-generated spear phishing emails. An online experiment (N = 164) was conducted which divided participants in two groups, one assessing genuine and human-generated spear phishing emails and one assessing genuine and GenAI-generated spear phishing emails. Cognitive rigidity was measured using a validated scale and consumer vulnerability was measured using detection accuracy. The results of this research illustrated that GenAI-generated emails had a significant lower detection accuracy score, which suggests higher vulnerability. The control variables age and phishing knowledge indicated meaningful associations with detection accuracy, but cognitive rigidity did not significantly moderate the relationship between email type and detection accuracy and did not significantly influence detection accuracy. These findings stress the rising threat of GenAI-generated phishing and the importance of public awareness and targeted training programs. This study contributes to the literature around cybersecurity challenges by combining cognitive psychology with evolving digital threats and concludes with recommendations for future research.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen