Summary
Being able to assess online credibility has become everybody’s business. People are continuously making judgments about the credibility of online information, but research has shown that we often rely on heuristics to make decisions in situations that should require more thoughtful consideration (Kahneman & Frederick, 2005). How we direct those considerations needs to be guided by science. This paper provides an overview of research that is then used by the authors to develop a theoretical credibility model of malicious cyber actors. This model has three empirically driven areas for assessment; information, user, and interaction characteristics. Information characteristics explores the online content, presentation, consistency, and technical features. This model then highlights the importance of the user in credibility assessment and identifies exploring both technical ability and deception indicators. Lastly, this model identifies interaction characteristics as relevant to credibility assessment through exploring communication patterns and relationships. It is intended to provide a comprehensive spectrum of considerations when assessing the veracity of online actors and sources. Future research should aim to examine the empirical validity of this proposed model.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Literature Review and Methodology
- Proposed Model for Online Adversary Credibility Assessment
- Discussion
- Limitations and Future Directions
- Summary
- Declaration of Interest Statement
- References