The usability of security – revisited
Steven Furnell · Computer Fraud & Security · 2016
One of the long-standing challenges around security technology has been to ensure it is provided in a manner that is usable for the target audience. Usability in this context encompasses several underlying factors, including the need to be understandable for users and to avoid being unnecessarily intrusive or introduce undue performance overheads, while at the same time enabling the desired security tasks to be performed effectively. One of the long-standing challenges around security technology has been to ensure it is provided in a manner that is usable for the target audience. Unfortunately, this theory has often failed to match up with how security is presented in practice, with the result that users find it difficult to get along with security features, end up making mistakes or sometimes decide not to bother with security at all. Steven Furnell of the University of Plymouth examines the attention that usability receives within current systems and draws some comparisons to earlier assessments to see if things have changed.