What Parts of Usable Security Are Most Important to Users?

• The importance of the human aspects of cybersecurity cannot be overstated in light of the many cybersecurity incidents stemming from insecure user behavior. Users are supposed to engage in secure behavior by use of security features or procedures but those struggle to get widespread use and one hindering factor is usability. While several previous papers studied various usability factors in the cybersecurity domain, a common understanding of usable security is missing. Further, usability covers a large range of aspects and understanding what aspects users prioritize is integral for development of truly usable security features. This paper builds on previous work and investigates what usability factors users prioritize and what demographic factors that affects the perception of usability factors. This is done through a survey answered by 1452 respondents from Sweden, Italy and UK. The results show that users prefer security functions to minimize resource consumption in terms of cost, device performance and time. The study further demonstrate that users want security functions to require as little effort as possible and just work. Further, the study determines that nation of residence and IT-competence greatly impacts the perception of usability for security functions while gender and age does so to a much lesser extent.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Systemvetenskap, informationssystem och informatik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Information Systems (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Usability

Usable security

Cyber security

Human

User

Perception

INF303 Informationssäkerhet

INF303 Information Security

Information Systems

Informationssystem (IS)

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)