Usable security.

Atzeni, Andrea; Faily, Shamal; Galloni, Ruggero

Abstract

Traditionally, security is only considered as strong as its weakest link, and people were considered as the weak links (Schneier, 2003). This thinking triggers a vicious circle. (Adam & Sasse, 1999) stated that users are informed as little as possible on security mechanisms taken by IT departments, precisely because they are seen as inherently untrustworthy. Their work has shown that users were not sufficiently aware of security issues and tend to build their own (often inaccurate) models of possible security threats. Users have a low perception of threats because they lack the necessary information to understand their importance. According to (Sasse & al., 2001) blaming users for a security breach is like blaming human error rather than bad design. Security has, therefore, a human dimension that must be neither ignored nor neglected. The increase in the number of breaches may be attributed to designers who fail to sufficiently consider the human factor in their design techniques. Thus, to undo the Gordian knot of security, we must provide a human dimension to security.

Citation

ATZENI, A., FAILY, S. and GALLONI, R. 2018. Usable security. In Khosrow-Pour, M. (ed.) Encyclopedia of information science and technology. 4th edition. Hershey: IGI Global [online], chapter 433, pages 5004-5013. Available from: https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-2255-3.ch433

• Online Publication Date: Jun 30, 2017
• Publication Date: Dec 31, 2018
• Deposit Date: Sep 16, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 16, 2021
• Publisher: IGI Global
• Pages: 5004-5013
• Edition: 4th edition
• Book Title: Encyclopedia of information science and technology.
• Chapter Number: Chapter 433
• ISBN: 9781522522553
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-2255-3.ch433
• Keywords: Systems security; Security risk analysis; Human-computer interaction (HCI); User-centred design; User behaviour; Software engineering
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1437897