Apparently, people tend to believe they are less likely to fall for online scams than others. But this assumption can actually put them at more risk.

A study published in Comprehensive Results in Social Psychology from E. Blair Cox and colleagues at New York University claims that in general we overestimate our ability to detect and thus avoid phishing scams. Indeed, some are pretty obvious, but some others are not.

If we don’t take into consideration how often people fall for scams, we are unlikely to realise how susceptible we are ourselves.

Companies may also do well to take heed — base rates of successful scams are often shared with employees to encourage better security practices, but these results suggest that may not work. New approaches may be more successful.

There are also millions of people who don’t have digital literacy skills. But even if you are someone who knows their way around the internet — or even if you genuinely are unlikely to fall for a scam — the results are a reminder that it’s never good to make assumptions when thinking about our own vulnerabilities or assessing our levels of risk.