Mining the Mind – Applying Quantitative Techniques to Mental Models of Security
Mental models, informal representations of reality, provide an appealing explanation for the apparently non-rational security decisions of information technology users. Although users may be attempting to make secure decisions, the use of incomplete or incorrect information security mental models as...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Conference Paper |
| Published: |
2017
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/68099 |
| _version_ | 1848761742535950336 |
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| author | Thompson, Nik McGill, T. |
| author_facet | Thompson, Nik McGill, T. |
| author_sort | Thompson, Nik |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Mental models, informal representations of reality, provide an appealing explanation for the apparently non-rational security decisions of information technology users. Although users may be attempting to make secure decisions, the use of incomplete or incorrect information security mental models as a shortcut to decision making may lead to undesirable results. We describe mental models about viruses and hackers drawing on data from a survey of 609 adult IT users and link these to security behaviours and perceptions. We find that there are potentially just a small number of common security beliefs and suggest that accommodating mental models during security design may be more beneficial to long-term security than expecting users to change to accommodate security requirements. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T10:36:30Z |
| format | Conference Paper |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-68099 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T10:36:30Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-680992018-07-05T03:06:15Z Mining the Mind – Applying Quantitative Techniques to Mental Models of Security Thompson, Nik McGill, T. Mental models, informal representations of reality, provide an appealing explanation for the apparently non-rational security decisions of information technology users. Although users may be attempting to make secure decisions, the use of incomplete or incorrect information security mental models as a shortcut to decision making may lead to undesirable results. We describe mental models about viruses and hackers drawing on data from a survey of 609 adult IT users and link these to security behaviours and perceptions. We find that there are potentially just a small number of common security beliefs and suggest that accommodating mental models during security design may be more beneficial to long-term security than expecting users to change to accommodate security requirements. 2017 Conference Paper http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/68099 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-/3.0/ fulltext |
| spellingShingle | Thompson, Nik McGill, T. Mining the Mind – Applying Quantitative Techniques to Mental Models of Security |
| title | Mining the Mind – Applying Quantitative Techniques to Mental Models of Security |
| title_full | Mining the Mind – Applying Quantitative Techniques to Mental Models of Security |
| title_fullStr | Mining the Mind – Applying Quantitative Techniques to Mental Models of Security |
| title_full_unstemmed | Mining the Mind – Applying Quantitative Techniques to Mental Models of Security |
| title_short | Mining the Mind – Applying Quantitative Techniques to Mental Models of Security |
| title_sort | mining the mind – applying quantitative techniques to mental models of security |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/68099 |