The economics of information security has recently become a thriving and fast-moving discipline. As distributed systems are assembled from machines belonging to principals with divergent interests, we find that incentives are becoming as important as technical design in achieving dependability. The new field provides valuable insights not just into "security" topics (such as bugs, spam, phishing, and law enforcement strategy) but into more general areas such as the design of peer-to-peer systems, the optimal balance of effort by programmers and testers, why privacy gets eroded, and the politics of digital rights management.

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The Economics of Information Security

Analysis of end user security behaviors

Starting around 1999, a great many graphical password schemes have been proposed as alternatives to text-based password authentication. We provide a comprehensive overview of published research in the area, covering both usability and security aspects as well as system evaluation. The article first catalogues existing approaches, highlighting novel features of selected schemes and identifying key usability or security advantages. We then review usability requirements for knowledge-based authentication as they apply to graphical passwords, identify security threats that such systems must address and review known attacks, discuss methodological issues related to empirical evaluation, and identify areas for further research and improved methodology.

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Graphical passwords: Learning from the first twelve years

Security lapses and the omission of information security measures: A threat control model and empirical test

Human factors of complex sociotechnical systems.

A framework for understanding and predicting insider attacks

Personal information and organizational information need to be protected, which requires that only authorized users gain access to the information. The most commonly used method for authenticating users who attempt to access such information is through the use of username-password combinations. However, this is a weak method of authentication because users tend to generate passwords that are easy to remember but also easy to crack. Proactive password checking, for which passwords must satisfy certain criteria, is one method for improving the security of user-generated passwords. The present study evaluated the time and number of attempts needed to generate unique passwords satisfying different restrictions for multiple accounts, as well as the login time and accuracy for recalling those passwords. Imposing password restrictions alone did not necessarily lead to more secure passwords. However, the use of a technique for which the first letter of each word of a sentence was used coupled with a requirement to insert a special character and digit yielded more secure passwords that were more memorable.

Improving password security and memorability to protect personal and organizational information

Usability and Security An Appraisal of Usability Issues in Information Security Methods

Entering a username—password combination is a widely used procedure for identification and authentication in computer systems. However, it is a notoriously weak method, in that the passwords adopted by many users are easy to crack. In an attempt to improve security, proactive password checking may be used, in which passwords must meet several criteria to be more resistant to cracking. In two experiments, we examined the influence of proactive password restrictions on the time that it took to generate an acceptable password and to use it subsequently to log in. The required length was a minimum of five characters in Experiment 1 and eight characters in Experiment 2. In both experiments, one condition had only the length restriction, and the other had additional restrictions. The additional restrictions greatly increased the time it took to generate the password but had only a small effect on the time it took to use it subsequently to log in. For the five-character passwords, 75% were cracked when no other restrictions were imposed, and this was reduced to 33% with the additional restrictions. For the eight-character passwords, 17% were cracked with no other restrictions, and 12.5% with restrictions. The results indicate that increasing the minimum character length reduces crackability and increases security, regardless of whether additional restrictions are imposed.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758%2FBF03195438.pdf

E.Eugene Schultz

Papers

A framework for understanding and predicting insider attacks

Improving password security and memorability to protect personal and organizational information

Usability and Security An Appraisal of Usability Issues in Information Security Methods

Improving computer security for authentication of users: Influence of proactive password restrictions

From the Editor-in-Chief: The human factor in security