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Toward Better Usability, Security, and Privacy of Information Technology Report of a Workshop (2010) / Chapter Skim
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1 Overview of Security, Privacy, and Usability
Pages 1-6

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From page 1...
... People's personal lives also involve computing in areas ranging from communication with family and friends to online banking and other household and financial management activities. Com ­ panies large and small are ever more reliant on information systems to support diverse business processes, including payroll and accounting, the tracking of inventory, the operation of sales, manufacturing, and research 1National Research Council, Toward a Safer and More Secure Cyberspace, Seymour E
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From page 2...
... • Aoidance -- Because of the perceived security risks of computing, individuals or organizations avoid using IT systems, thereby missing the potential benefit of their use. • Catastrophe -- Failure of an IT system causes major economic loss and perhaps even loss of life.
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From page 3...
... Private information can be compromised by attacking networks and computers directly or by tricking users into revealing the information or the credentials required to access it.3 Protecting privacy often occurs in the face of competing inter­ ests in the collection or use of particular information, and addressing pri ­ vacy issues thus involves understanding and balancing these interests. uSAbILITy Usability may be thought of narrowly in terms of the quality of a system's interfaces, but the concept applies more broadly to how well a system supports user needs and expectations.
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From page 4...
... For example, industry reports, such as the one issued in 2008 by the 7 A recent paper by Herley explains that "security advice is a daily burden, applied to the whole population, while an upper bound on the benefit is the harm suffered by the fraction that become victims annually." C Herley, "So Long, and No Thanks for the Externalities: The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users," New Security Paradigms Workshop 2009, Oxford.
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From page 5...
... For example, although well­established techniques exist for testing the usability of a system, at least in the narrow sense of the quality of the system's interface, much less is known about how to effec ­ tively embed usability considerations in a specification. Better user mod ­ els might help in the identification of usability requirements and more generally speed development.
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From page 6...
... Increasingly, usable security and privacy papers are also appear­ ing at traditional security conferences and human­computer interaction conferences, more academic and industry researchers are focusing their research in this area, several universities now offer courses in this area,10 and the National Science Foundation's Trustworthy Computing program highlights usability as an important research area. 10 For example, courses have been offered by Carnegie Mellon University ("Usable Privacy and Security"; see http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/courses/ups.html)
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Key Terms

  • traditional security
  • computer security
  • security conferences
  • business risk
  • poor usability

  • data breach
  • risk team
  • security risks
  • onerous security
  • usable privacy

  • security relates
  • border security
  • information privacy
  • security capability
  • privacy usability

  • security requirements
  • including national
  • security measures
  • security advice
  • perceived security

  • security features
  • essential security
  • reduce security
  • defeat security
  • security paradigms

  • personal privacy
  • privacy information
  • usable security
  • causes major
  • organizations avoid


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