Organizations Respond to Phishing: Exploring the Public Relations Tackle Box

Relationship management theory focuses on processes of shared goals and favorable outcomes for organizations and their publics. Relationship management theory also provides theoretical justification for research exploring the threat phishing poses to upend the shared goal between organizations and their publics to secure online financial and personal information. Phishing refers to the fraudulent and increasingly authentic looking e-mail attempts aimed to lure unsuspecting recipients into sharing information such as credit card, checking account, and social security numbers. Internet security recommendations were used to develop and assess compliance with 24 strategies aimed to help organizations and publics protect online information. Results show surprisingly low adherence of many recommended anti-phishing strategies. Efforts to protect organization-public relationships are discussed, as are future research projects to explore phishing effects and anti-phishing advocacy.