Improving computer security through the analysis of human factors

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Computer security and privacy problems can arise for a wide variety of reasons that often involve the interaction of people with computer applications. Unfortunately, many computer applications are designed and evaluated as though they are separate from the people who interact with them (e.g., end-users and developers of the application itself ). This lack of incorporating human factors (e.g., human behaviour, mental models, and usability) in the design and evaluation of computer applications can result in security problems in practice. Such security problems motivate the proposed research program. Two directions will be examined in this research: one on human factors related to end-users (i.e., user-centered human factors) and another on human factors related to software developers (i.e., developer-centered human factors). The goal of this research is to improve computer security and privacy by incorporating user- and developer-centered human factors into the design, creation, and evaluation of new security-focused software tools.