Human factors leading to online fraud victimisation:Literature review and exploring the role of personality traits

With the advent of the internet, criminals gained new tools to commit crimes. Crimes in which the use of connected information technologies is essential for the realisation of the offence are defined as cybercrimes. The human factor is often identified as the weakest link in the information security chain, and it is often the behaviour of humans that leads to the success of cybercrimes. In this chapter, enduser characteristics are studied that may predict cybercrime victimisation. This is done by means of a review of the literature and by a study on personality traits. More specifically, personality traits from the big five are tested on victims of three different types of online fraud, phishing, Microsoft fraud, and purchasing fraud, and are compared with norm groups of the Dutch population. This chapter ends with implications for online fraud prevention and possibilities to advance the study of cyber victimisation.