Hook & Match - Development and Evaluation of a Pair Matching Phishing Card Game

Digital fatigue is increasing due to ongoing digitization, yet understanding digital processes remains crucial. Cybercriminals exploit the lack of knowledge and awareness among users. To address this, we developed “Hook & Match”, a Pair Matching Phishing Card game, which combines the familiar non-digital principle of pair matching with phishing education to avoid contributing to digital fatigue. In “Hook & Match”, players match cards to learn how to distinguish different phishing attempts from legitimate examples.

Our evaluation shows that playing “Hook & Match” significantly improves users’ ability to identify phishing compared to legitimate cases. We also investigated whether prior knowledge had an impact on the learning outcomes and found that, regardless of their initial level of expertise, both knowledgeable users and novices benefited from playing the game. However, participants with the lowest initial level benefited the most. This demonstrates that “Hook & Match” is an effective tool for phishing education without exacerbating digital fatigue.