## 1 Introduction  
Sextortion, an act of threatening to expose sexually explicit material in order to get individuals to perform an act against their will, such as sexual acts, share sexually explicit material, or in the most common cases for the purpose of obtaining money [1], continues to be an under-addressed issue in society. While other similar terms such as sexting, nonconsensual pornography, and revenge pornography are all related to sextortion by the illegal or malicious distribution of sexual material, sextortion is distinguished from these terms by the threat to distribute sexual material in order to force someone to do something, even if the threat is never carried out. Sextortion cases generally fall into two broad groups: either an outcome of a sexual relationship in which an aggriever partner tries to force reconciliation or humiliate the victim, or a result of the victim having met the perpetrator online [2]. The nature of threats to distribute sexual material generally include posting images online, sending images to acquaintances or family members, including the victim's identity with the posted material, getting victims in trouble at work or school or with the law, stalking or physically hurting victims or their families, and more [2]. Consequences of sextortion threats for victims generally include the loss of a relationship; seeing a health practitioner; moving house; having a school or job-related problem; incurring financial costs; and suffering from fear, shame, and embarrassment [2]. The current study will specifically investigate cyber sextortion scams, as opposed to other forms of sextortion including sextortion threats that occur as a result of a relationship between victim and perpetrator whether face-to-face or online. Cyber sextortion has been shown to account for approximately 40% of all sextortion cases [2]. Cyber sextortion scams have been defined in the current study as a threat, delivered to victims through online communication mediums including email, to distribute sexual material in order to force the victim to do something. The victim is usually encouraged to pay money to the perpetrator. As the sextortion threat is a scam, the perpetrator will usually be unable to execute the threat regardless of whether the victim has been successfully coerced. Studies show that sextortion, particularly cyber sextortion, is on the rise [3], and affects thousands to millions of people [4]. However, sextortion attacks and individual susceptibility to these attacks are dramatically understudied [5]. As such, little is known about the characteristics of people who are most likely to be vulnerable to sextortion attacks, as well as which aspects of sextortion attacks are likely to be persuasive in encouraging victims to cooperate with the perpetrator's demands. Similarly, little is known about how these attacks can best be mitigated. As the sextortion attacks are mostly generated from an acquaintance of the victims, the goal of this study includes the following:  
* To present a comprehensive understanding of the individuals who carry out sextortion attacks to coerce their victims into parting with money, sex, additional images, or a resumption of the relationship. * To examine the role that various design cues, including anxiety, arousal, reticence, and reduced spontaneity, play in deception and persuasion as well as how they affect a person's susceptibility to cyber sextortion attacks. * To identify the traits of the person who was used to make the email more pertinent, to show how the recipient interprets emails, and to recognize the main sorts of messages that catch their attention. * Finally, a survey-based, non-experimental methodology was employed to determine participants' sensitivity to cyber sextortion attacks using predictor variables (design cues related to cyber sextortion) and outcome variables. This paper begins by providing a theoretical background on the theories of susceptibility to deception, persuasion, and cyber sextortion.