Security Awareness and Affective Feedback: Categorical Behaviour vs. Reported Behaviour
This addresses security awareness for end-users, but the results are incremental with mixed feedback effects.
The paper investigated the gap between what users actually reveal online versus what they think they reveal, finding a disparity that highlights a deficit in security awareness, while affective feedback showed limited short-term impact.
A lack of awareness surrounding secure online behaviour can lead to end-users, and their personal details becoming vulnerable to compromise. This paper describes an ongoing research project in the field of usable security, examining the relationship between end-user-security behaviour, and the use of affective feedback to educate end-users. Part of the aforementioned research project considers the link between categorical information users reveal about themselves online, and the information users believe, or report that they have revealed online. The experimental results confirm a disparity between information revealed, and what users think they have revealed, highlighting a deficit in security awareness. Results gained in relation to the affective feedback delivered are mixed, indicating limited short-term impact. Future work seeks to perform a long-term study, with the view that positive behavioural changes may be reflected in the results as end-users become more knowledgeable about security awareness.