research-article

"If It's Important It Will Be A Headline": Cybersecurity Information Seeking in Older Adults

Authors:

James Nicholson,

Lynne Coventry,

Pamela BriggsAuthors Info & Claims

CHI '19: Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Paper No.: 349, Pages 1 - 11

https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300579

Published: 02 May 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Older adults are increasingly vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks and scams. Yet we know relatively little about their understanding of cybersecurity, their information-seeking behaviours, and their trusted sources of information and advice in this domain. We conducted 22 semi-structured interviews with community-dwelling older adults in order to explore their cybersecurity information seeking behaviours. Following a thematic analysis of these interviews, we developed a cybersecurity information access framework that highlights shortcomings in older adults' choice of information resources. Specifically, we find that older users prioritise social resources based on availability, rather than cybersecurity expertise, and that they avoid using the Internet for cybersecurity information searches despite using it for other domains. Finally, we discuss the design of cybersecurity information dissemination strategies for older users, incorporating favoured sources such as TV adverts and radio programming.

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Cited By

Gruben MSheil ADas SO'Keeffe MCamilleri JCronin MMurray H(2025)"It's Like Not Being Able to Read and Write": Narrowing the Digital Divide for Older Adults and Leveraging the Role of Digital Educators in IrelandProceedings of the Nineteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction10.1145/3689050.3704945(1-15)Online publication date: 4-Mar-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3689050.3704945
Nawi HOmar SBasaruddin S(2025)Securing the Silver Surfers: Cybersecurity Awareness Among Older Adults2025 19th International Conference on Ubiquitous Information Management and Communication (IMCOM)10.1109/IMCOM64595.2025.10857480(1-7)Online publication date: 3-Jan-2025
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Index Terms

"If It's Important It Will Be A Headline": Cybersecurity Information Seeking in Older Adults
1. Security and privacy
  1. Human and societal aspects of security and privacy
    1. Social aspects of security and privacy

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cover image ACM Conferences

CHI '19: Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

May 2019

9077 pages

ISBN:9781450359702

DOI:10.1145/3290605

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Stephen Brewster
University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK
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Geraldine Fitzpatrick
TU Wien, Austria
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Anna Cox
University College London, UK
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Vassilis Kostakos
University of Melbourne, Australia

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3689050.3704945
Nawi HOmar SBasaruddin S(2025)Securing the Silver Surfers: Cybersecurity Awareness Among Older Adults2025 19th International Conference on Ubiquitous Information Management and Communication (IMCOM)10.1109/IMCOM64595.2025.10857480(1-7)Online publication date: 3-Jan-2025
https://doi.org/10.1109/IMCOM64595.2025.10857480
Bhattacharya PKarar SSaha SChatterjee D(2025)Cyber Literacy, Awareness, and Safety of Senior CitizensPower Devices and Internet of Things for Intelligent System Design10.1002/9781394311613.ch4(99-131)Online publication date: 13-Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.1002/9781394311613.ch4
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Montasari RHopcraft B(2024)Securing Cyberspace: Addressing the Dark Web and Cybercrime UnderreportingSpace Law Principles and Sustainable Measures10.1007/978-3-031-64045-2_9(185-198)Online publication date: 15-Sep-2024
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