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We live in a highly technical world, dependent on sophisticated computer systems for almost everything we do. Despite our best efforts, the nation's computer systems and the critical services they support remain insecure. Creating secure computing systems and protecting the information contained in those systems requires not only technological savvy but also an understanding of the needs, knowledge, and intentions of human users. Security technology that is perceived as burdensome, untrustworthy, or difficult to implement is often ignored, misinterpreted, or overridden by its users. Yet not enough empirical studies have focused on the interaction between human behavior and cyber protection. Instead most research has focused on the development of technical solutions, such as authentication and authorization protocols, or on the training and education of system developers and users. This I3P research project, Leveraging Human Behavior to Reduce Cyber Security Risk, brings a behavioral sciences lens to security, examining the interface between human beings and computers through a set of rigorous empirical studies. Multi-disciplinary in design, the project draws together social scientists and information security professionals to illuminate the intricacies of human perceptions, cognitions, and biases, and how these impact computer security. Investigating how people interface in the security realm, this research specifically looks at how social science approaches can help us design more secure systems and processes. Over the course of 15 months, the research team, comprised of members from the MITRE Corporation, the RAND Corporation, and Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, has set three goals for itself: to better understand behavioral science's applicability to cyber security, to develop a methodology for testing the influence of behavior on security, and to compile a set of pioneering research studies that will serve as a catalyst for further work related to human behavior and its role in decreasing cyber security risk.
Team Members:
Team Leader: Deanna D. Caputo - dcaputo@mitre.org
Funding: Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
