Phishing vulnerability compounded by older age, APOE4 genotype, and lower cognition

With technological advancements, financial exploitation tactics have expanded into the online realm. Older adults may be particularly susceptible to online scams due to age- and Alzheimer’s Disease-related changes in cognition. In this study, 182 adults ranging from 18-90 years underwent cognitive assessment, genotyping for apolipoprotein E e4 (APOE4), and completed the lab-based Short Phishing Email Suspicion Test (S-PEST) as well as the real-life PHishing Internet Task (PHIT). Across both paradigms, older age predicted heightened susceptibility to phishing, with this enhanced susceptibility pronounced among older APOE4 allele carriers with lower working memory. Additionally, performance in both phishing tasks was correlated, in that reduced ability to discriminate between phishing and safe emails in S-PEST predicted greater phishing susceptibility in PHIT. The current study identifies older age, APOE4, and lower cognition as risk factors of phishing vulnerability and introduces S-PEST as an easy-to-administer, ecologically valid tool for assessing phishing susceptibility.