  Several previous studies have investigated user susceptibility to phishing
attacks. A thorough meta-analysis or systematic review is required to gain a
better understanding of these findings and to assess the strength of evidence
for phishing susceptibility of a subpopulation, e.g., older users. We aim to
determine whether an effect exists; another aim is to determine whether the
effect is positive or negative and to obtain a single summary estimate of the
effect.
  OBJECTIVES: We systematically review the results of previous user studies on
phishing susceptibility and conduct a meta-analysis.
  METHOD: We searched four online databases for English studies on phishing. We
included all user studies in phishing detection and prevention, whether they
proposed new training techniques or analyzed users' vulnerability.
  FINDINGS: A careful analysis reveals some discrepancies between the findings.
More than half of the studies that analyzed the effect of age reported no
statistically significant relationship between age and users' performance. Some
studies reported older people performed better while some reported the
opposite. A similar finding holds for the gender difference. The meta-analysis
shows: 1) a significant relationship between participants' age and their
susceptibility 2) females are more susceptible than males 3) users training
significantly improves their detection ability
