Previous Work: Using Individual Differences to Personalize Security Mitigations

Principal Investigator(s): 
Serge Egelman

Researchers at ICSI are leveraging well-studied individual differences in the psychology literature in order to improve computer security outcomes. Specifically, they are looking at how people with different decision-making styles may be more or less receptive to different types of security messaging. Applying techniques from behavioral economics, the goal is to frame security mitigations for individual users so that they see the security messages that are most likely to have an effect on them. For instance, the researchers envision applying these techniques to web browser security warnings, software update messages, mobile device authentication, and so forth.

Funding provided by NSF.