A Comparison of American and German Folk Models of Home Computer Security

Although many security solutions exist, home computer systems are vulnerable against different type of attacks. The main reason is that users are either not motivated to use these solutions or not able to correctly use them. In order to make security software more usable and hence computers more secure, we re-ran the study by Wash about “Folk Models of Home Computer Security” in Germany. We classified the different mental models in eleven folk models. Eight of the identified folk models are similar to the models Wash presented. We describe each folk model and illustrate how users think about computer security

Spartan Daily, April 26, 1990

Volume 94, Issue 58https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/7988/thumbnail.jp

The Future of the Internet

Presents findings from a survey of technology leaders, scholars, industry officials, and analysts. Evaluates the network infrastructure's vulnerability to attack, and the Internet's impact on various institutions and activities in the coming decade

Pervasive eHealth services a security and privacy risk awareness survey

The human factor is often recognised as a major aspect of cyber-security research. Risk and situational perception are identified as key factors in the decision making process, often playing a lead role in the adoption of security mechanisms. However, risk awareness and perception have been poorly investigated in the field of eHealth wearables. Whilst end-users often have limited understanding of privacy and security of wearables, assessing the perceived risks and consequences will help shape the usability of future security mechanisms. This paper present a survey of the the risks and situational awareness in eHealth services. An analysis of the lack of security and privacy measures in connected health devices is described with recommendations to circumvent critical situations

Mining the Mind – Applying Quantitative Techniques to Understand Mental Models of Security

The personal information shared on Facebook can expose individuals to increased risk such as cybercrime and identity theft. While the perception of risk associated with online self-disclosure is increasing, this may not translate into risk management behaviours. This study explored why individuals choose to self-disclose on Facebook, often in spite of the risks. It was hypothesised that a personality style accentuated by impulsive and anti-social behaviour would help to explain this risk-behaviour dichotomy. In other words, individuals who are more narcissistic with less self-control were predicted to expose themselves to more risk on Facebook. An online questionnaire was completed by 263 Australians. This study found that individuals who had less self-control and higher narcissism exposed themselves to significantly more risk on Facebook. Hence, this study found that narcissism and self-control play a meaningful role in the risk-behaviour dichotomy. These findings add to the body of literature on online self-disclosure

Evaluating the End-User Experience of Private Browsing Mode

Nowadays, all major web browsers have a private browsing mode. However, the mode's benefits and limitations are not particularly understood. Through the use of survey studies, prior work has found that most users are either unaware of private browsing or do not use it. Further, those who do use private browsing generally have misconceptions about what protection it provides. However, prior work has not investigated \emph{why} users misunderstand the benefits and limitations of private browsing. In this work, we do so by designing and conducting a three-part study: (1) an analytical approach combining cognitive walkthrough and heuristic evaluation to inspect the user interface of private mode in different browsers; (2) a qualitative, interview-based study to explore users' mental models of private browsing and its security goals; (3) a participatory design study to investigate why existing browser disclosures, the in-browser explanations of private browsing mode, do not communicate the security goals of private browsing to users. Participants critiqued the browser disclosures of three web browsers: Brave, Firefox, and Google Chrome, and then designed new ones. We find that the user interface of private mode in different web browsers violates several well-established design guidelines and heuristics. Further, most participants had incorrect mental models of private browsing, influencing their understanding and usage of private mode. Additionally, we find that existing browser disclosures are not only vague, but also misleading. None of the three studied browser disclosures communicates or explains the primary security goal of private browsing. Drawing from the results of our user study, we extract a set of design recommendations that we encourage browser designers to validate, in order to design more effective and informative browser disclosures related to private mode