Personality Traits and Cyber-Attack Victimisation: Multiple Mediation Analysis

The current research aims to gain insight on the role of the five personality traits (conscientiousness, neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and openness to experience) in users' susceptibility to cyber-attack victimisation in the context of online social networks and investigates how different factors such as users' competence to deal with online threats, users' trust in other members in social network as well as trusting the network's service provider, users' motivation to engage in the network, and users' experience with cyber-crimes mediate and control this relationship. The effect of personality traits on user's online risky behaviour is still a controversial topic in cyber security research. Therefore, the present study proposes a mediation model that includes the five personality traits and the four mediators that together affect the user's likelihood of falling victim to cyber-attacks. The study conducted a scenario-based experiment with 316 participants to test the study model and the hypotheses' significance. Empirical results indicate that all five personality traits, except openness, have significant indirect effect on users' susceptibility to cyber-attack victimisation.