Exploring Internet Security Perceptions and Practices in Urban Ghana
Jay Chen, Michael Paik, Kelly McCabe · Symposium On Usable Privacy and Security · 2014
Security is predicated, in part, upon the clear understanding of threats and the use of strategies to mitigate these threats. Internet landscapes and the use of the Internet in developing countries are vastly different compared to those in rich countries where technology is more pervasive. In this work, we explore the use of Internet technology throughout urban and peri-urban Ghana and examine attitudes toward security to gauge the extent to which this new population of technology users may be vulnerable to attacks. We find that, like in North America and Europe, the prevalent mental threat model indicates a lack of understanding of how Internet technologies operate. As a result, people rely heavily upon passwords for security online and those who augment their security do so with a variety of ad hoc practices learned by word of mouth. We relate and contrast our findings to previous works and make several recommendations for improving security in these contexts.