Exploring Protection Mechanisms for Online Investment Fraud

Online investment fraud is a growing threat to internet users worldwide. A wide variety of preventative and protective measures against online investment fraud exist (Button & Cross, 2017), including but not limited to public awareness campaigns (Cross & Kelly, 2016) and the creation of online fraud-focused government entities that specifically target scams. The extent to which these protection mechanisms affect the interaction between investment fraud offenders and potential victims requires ongoing academic attention as online investment fraud continues to proliferate and evolve. The relationship between threat awareness and self-protective behaviour has been explored extensively in IS literature using the Protection Motivation theory (PMT) (Rogers, 1975). Building on the previous novel findings of Luu et al. (2017), the researchers performed a study that replicated their methodology to examine user decision-making in selecting protection mechanisms in the context of online investment fraud. The specific research questions the study addresses are; 1. How does awareness of threats online impact threat appraisal? 2. How does awareness of protection mechanisms online impact coping appraisals? 3. How do threat appraisals impact user intentions to adopt protection mechanisms? 4. How do coping appraisals impact user intention to adopt protection mechanisms when going online? A survey was distributed to 300 participants and analysed using the partial-least squares method. The results suggest that awareness of the existence of the threat of online investment fraud and the harms that can result from victimisation significantly shapes an Internet user’s perception of the overall threat environment online. For certain types of protection mechanisms, an individual’s perception of its effectiveness positively impacts their decision to implement it. The findings of this study suggest that Internet users generally have a lack of awareness of the harms associated with online investment fraud, and that Internet users may need to be proactively informed of the existence of certain protection mechanisms to promote their use, such as two-factor authentication or digital hygiene measures.