On Users’ Mental Models of Security Controls

A mental model is “an abstraction of system’s architecture and software structures that is simple enough for non-technical users to grasp. . . It provides an integrated package of knowledge that allows the user to predict what the system will do if certain commands are executed, to predict the state of the system after the commands have been executed, to plan methods for novel tasks, and to deal with odd error situations” (Card and Moran, 1986). Adequate mental models of security controls are critical for computer users in order to avoid dangerous errors. Yet, security controls and their interfaces are hard to design in a way that could help users in developing and maintaining adequate mental models.

I will describe resent research at the Laboratory for Education and Research in Secure Systems Engineering (http://lersse.ece.ubc.ca), University of British Columbia. I will focus on those projects in which we either intentionally study users’ mental models of security controls or end-up stumbling upon them (or their parts) by accident. Specifically, I will focus on the studies of Vista personal firewall, UAC prompt, and web authentication with OpenID. I will discuss our findings about the corresponding mental models and ideas for improving them.

Speaker Details

Konstantin (Kosta) Beznosov is an Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, where he founded and directs the Laboratory for Education and Research in Secure Systems Engineering (LERSSE). His primary research interests are usable security, distributed systems security, secure software engineering, and access control. Prior UBC, Dr. Beznosov was a Security Architect with Quadrasis, Hitachi Computer Products (America), Inc, where he designed and developed products for security integration of enterprise applications, as well as consulted large telecommunication and banking companies on the architecture of security solutions for distributed
enterprise applications. Dr. Beznosov did his Ph.D. research on engineering access control for distributed enterprise applications at the Florida International University. He actively participated in standardization of security-related specifications (CORBA Security, RAD, SDMM) at the Object Management Group, and served as a co-chair of the OMG’s Security SIG. He has served on PCs or has been involved in organization of SOUPS, NDSS, ACSAC, SACMAT, CCS, NSPW, CHIMIT, SafeConfig, and other security research venues.

Date:
Speakers:
Konstantin Beznosov
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia (UBC)
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