Rewind
All the content from last year’s PeepSec, Impact and flagship industry events
Mental models in warnings message design: A review and two case studies
This paper delves into the process of how individuals acquire, assess, and process data, specifically examining the psychology of risk perception to pinpoint essential factors for crafting effective messages. The application of the mental models methodology in risk...
Stop clicking on “update later”: Persuading users they need up-to-date antivirus protection
Online security advice aims to persuade users to behave securely, but appears to have limited effects at changing behaviour. We propose security advice targeted at end-users should employ visual rhetoric to form an effective, memorable, and persuasive method of...
Mental models of software updates
One of the largest preventable sources of computer compromise is old software that has not been updated with the latest security-related updates. Security updates correct known vulnerabilities in software and protect the computer from future attacks. However, users do...
Unethical information security behavior and organizational commitment
In this chapter, the author investigates the relationships between unethical behaviors from the viewpoint of information security and organizational commitment by analyzing micro data collected from a survey the author conducted in March 2012. As a result, at first,...
The ‘privacy paradox’ in the social web: The impact of privacy concerns, individual characteristics, and the perceived social relevance on different forms of self-disclosure
Given the diffusion of the Social Web and increased disclosure of personal information online, the ‘privacy paradox’ suggests that while Internet users are concerned about privacy, their behaviors do not mirror those concerns. This study investigates the potential...
Consumerisation of IT: Mitigating risky user actions and improving productivity with nudging
In this work we address the main issues of IT consumerisation that are related to security risks, and propose a ‘soft’ mitigation strategy for user actions based on nudging, widely applied to health and social behaviour influence. In particular, we propose a...
Heuristics and biases in cyber security dilemmas
We carried out two behavioural experiments to investigate if and how cybersecurity decision-making responses are influenced by gain-loss framing and the prominence of a primed recall of a previous experience. In the first experiment, we adjusted the frame (gain vs....
Counteracting phishing through HCI: Detecting attacks and warning users
Within nine different research projects about phishing protection this thesis gives answers to ten different research questions in the areas of creating new phishing detectors (phishing detection) and providing usable user feedback for such systems (user...
Information security awareness: Comparing perceptions and training preferences
Use of the Internet has become our second nature. With each passing day computers and mobile devices are becoming ubiquitous in our society. In this backdrop the confidentiality of information is now a question of paramount importance. It is understood fact now that...
Effects of self-relevant perspective-taking on the impact of persuasive appeals
Researchers offer participants persuasive communications in the form of charitable appeals and commercial advertisements. By drawing the attention of the participant to how similar they are with either a victim of misfortune (in a charitable appeal) or a protagonist...
Security threat report 2014
The 2014 Security Threat Report discusses the evolution of the cyber threat landscape. It suggests that less skilled cybercriminals are being pushed out of the market, leading to a survival of the fittest scenario. This evolution is expected to result in fewer, but...
Control-related motivations and information security policy compliance: The role of autonomy and efficacy.
Employees’ failures to follow information security policy can be costly to organizations, causing organizations to implement security controls to motivate secure behavior. Information security research has explored many control-related motivations (e.g.,...
Guide to measuring privacy concern: Review of survey and observational instruments
The ongoing debate about online privacy attests to the concerns of web users. These privacy anxieties encourage consumers to adopt data protection features, shape their valuation of existing features, and can guide their preferences among competing businesses....
National safety management society October 2013 digest (O’Neill exemplifies safety leadership)
The O'Neill Exemplifies Safety Leadership subsection of this NSMS Digest focuses on former secretary of the U.S. Treasury Paul O'Neill's advocation of transparency in safety measures. O'Neill argues for real-time information on who may have had their safety...
From information security to cyber security
This paper discusses the common misconception of using the terms cyber security and information security interchangeably. While there is a significant overlap between the two, they are not entirely synonymous. The paper suggests that cyber security extends beyond the...
Restrictive deterrent effects of a warning banner in an attacked computer system
System trespassing by computer intruders is a growing concern among millions of Internet users. However, little research has employed criminological insights to explore the effectiveness of security means to deter unauthorized access to computer systems. Drawing on...
Investigating phishing victimization with the Heuristic-Systematic model: A theoretical framework and an exploration
To the extent that phishing has become a serious threat to information security, there has been rather limited theory-grounded research on this burgeoning phenomenon. In this paper, we develop a theoretical model of victimization by phishing based on the...
Home user security- from thick security-oriented home users to thin security- oriented home users
In the technological world in which we live, access to the Internet is no longer a luxury. Rather, it is a necessity and a lifeline to many. The Internet is used, amongst other things for obtaining information, for doing business and for social networking. However,...
Understanding the violation of IS security policy in organizations: An integrated model based on social control and deterrence theory
It is widely agreed that a large amount of information systems (IS) security incidents occur in the workplace because employees subvert existing IS Security Policy (ISSP). In order to understand the factors that constrain employees from deviance and violation of the...
Keeping up with the Joneses: Assessing phishing susceptibility in an email task
Most prior research on preventing phishing attacks focuses on technology to identify and prevent the delivery of phishing emails. The current study supports an ongoing effort to develop a user-profile that predicts when phishing attacks will be successful. We sought...
Can we sell security like soap?: A new approach to behaviour change
Many organisations run security awareness programmes with the aim of improving end user behaviours around information security. Yet behavioural research tells us that raising awareness will not necessarily lead to behaviour change. In this paper we examine the...