## 5 Discussion  
The purpose of this study was to extend our understanding of cyber sextortion by using the results obtained from this study and knowledge surrounding social engineering attack-based techniques such as phishing, to investigate the effects of message-related factors on cyber security behavior and susceptibility to cyber sextortion attacks. This study examined the effect that focusing attention on a number of email design cues has on people's potential to respond to, and hence be susceptible to, cyber sextortion attacks. The email design cues, identified in the IIPM, that were examined included email source, grammar and spelling, urgency cues, and title/subject line. The following results were shown with regard to the study's hypotheses: (1) hypothesis one--focusing attention on the email source in cyber sextortion emails will correlate with participants rating the email as less likely to be responded to than not focusing attention on the email source--was not supported; (2) hypothesis two--focusing attention on grammar and spelling in cyber sextortion emails will correlate with participants rating the email as less likely to be responded to than not focusing attention on grammar and spelling--was not supported; (3) hypothesis three--focusing attention on the title/subject line in cyber sextortion emails will correlate with participants rating the email as more likely to be responded to than not focusing attention on the title/subject line--was supported; and (4) hypothesis four--focusing attention on urgency cues in cyber sextortion emails will correlate with participants rating the email as more likely to be responded to than not focusing attention on urgency cues--was not supported. As previously indicated in the current study section, the null hypotheses are also relevant on the basis of participants still being susceptible to cyber sextortion attacks, particularly in cases where non-significance was observed. The results for hypothesis one showed that when participants focused on the source address in cyber sextortion emails, they were not less likely to be susceptible to cyber sextortion attacks compared to when no email design cue was specified. In fact, the results showed that they were more likely to be susceptible when focusing on the email source. This is in contradiction to previous research on phishing susceptibility which showed that source address has the potential to reveal the authenticity of phishing emails and thus alert potential victims to the deception, reducing the likelihood that victims will respond and hence be susceptible [30]. The discrepancy between the current study's results and that of past studies with regard to source address may be due to differences in the nature of cyber sextortion attacks as opposed to phishing attacks. In phishing attacks, the perpetrator is often attempting to impersonate another individual or business in order to hide the malicious nature of the email. In cyber sextortion attacks, the malicious nature of the email is emphasized in order to threaten the victim to respond. Thus, victims are already alerted to the threat of the email. In addition, focusing attention on the email source in cyber sextortion attacks may help personalize the email, reinforcing to the victim that the perpetrator is a real, autonomous entity that can do damage. In any case, this result highlights the importance of the email source as a design cue capable of fooling victims into responding to cyber sextortion attacks. For the second and third hypotheses, the results indicated that when attention was focused on grammar and spelling, or when attention was focused on urgency cues, susceptibility to cyber sextortion attacks did not differ significantly compared to when attention to email design cues was not specified.