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Using reinforcement to strengthen users' secure behaviors

Published: 10 April 2010 Publication History

Abstract

Users have a strong tendency toward dismissing security dialogs unthinkingly. Prior research has shown that users' responses to security dialogs become significantly more thoughtful when dialogs are polymorphic, and that further improvements can be obtained when dialogs are also audited and auditors penalize users who give unreasonable responses. We contribute an Operant Conditioning model that fits these observations, and, inspired by the model, propose Security Reinforcing Applications (SRAs). SRAs seek to reward users' secure behavior, instead of penalizing insecure behavior. User studies show that SRAs improve users' secure behaviors and that behaviors strengthened in this way do not extinguish after a period of several weeks in which users do not interact with SRAs. Moreover, inspired by Social Learning theory, we propose Vicarious Security Reinforcement (VSR). A user study shows that VSR accelerates SRA benefits.

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  • (2021)Towards the use of Participatory Methods in Cybersecurity research in rural Africa: A grassroots Approach2021 3rd International Multidisciplinary Information Technology and Engineering Conference (IMITEC)10.1109/IMITEC52926.2021.9714649(1-7)Online publication date: 23-Nov-2021
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cover image ACM Conferences
CHI '10: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
April 2010
2690 pages
ISBN:9781605589299
DOI:10.1145/1753326
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 10 April 2010

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Author Tags

  1. audited dialogs
  2. context-sensitive guidance
  3. observational learning
  4. operant conditioning
  5. polymorphic dialogs
  6. security-reinforcing application
  7. social learning theory
  8. vicarious learning
  9. vicarious security reinforcement

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Cited By

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  • (2024)Open Issues in Persuasive Technologies: Six HCI Challenges for the Design of Behavior Change SystemsHuman-Computer Interaction10.1007/978-3-031-60428-7_8(99-116)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2024
  • (2023)Exploring the Lived Experience of Behavior Change Technologies: Towards an Existential Model of Behavior Change for HCIACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/360349730:6(1-50)Online publication date: 25-Sep-2023
  • (2021)Towards the use of Participatory Methods in Cybersecurity research in rural Africa: A grassroots Approach2021 3rd International Multidisciplinary Information Technology and Engineering Conference (IMITEC)10.1109/IMITEC52926.2021.9714649(1-7)Online publication date: 23-Nov-2021
  • (2018)Digital Behaviour Change Interventions to Break and Form HabitsACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/319683025:3(1-66)Online publication date: 12-Jun-2018
  • (2016)Now Check Your InputProceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/2858036.2858067(3311-3323)Online publication date: 7-May-2016
  • (2014)Towards a contingency approach with whitelist-and blacklist-based anti-phishing applicationsBehaviour & Information Technology10.1080/0144929X.2013.87522133:11(1136-1147)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2014
  • (2012)CodeShieldProceedings of the 28th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference10.1145/2420950.2420992(279-288)Online publication date: 3-Dec-2012
  • (2012)A usability test of whitelist and blacklist-based anti-phishing applicationProceeding of the 16th International Academic MindTrek Conference10.1145/2393132.2393170(195-202)Online publication date: 3-Oct-2012
  • (2012)Health service employees and information security policies: an uneasy partnership?Information Management & Computer Security10.1108/0968522121126766620:4(296-311)Online publication date: 5-Oct-2012
  • (2011)The security cost of cheap user interactionProceedings of the 2011 New Security Paradigms Workshop10.1145/2073276.2073284(67-82)Online publication date: 12-Sep-2011

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