Chiasson, Sonia (Carleton University)

Purpose

Effects of poor cybersecurity impact everyone, from individuals to large corporations, not-for-profit organizations, or government agencies. While many security incidents have a human component, these can frequently be traced back to system designs and configurations that placing unreasonable demands on users by ignore human capabilities and real-world context of use. In the same way that network protocols are resilient to network interruptions or dropped packets, I suggest that security systems should be resilient and adaptable to human behaviour. My research program relates to such human-oriented computer security. The main objectives are to identify strengths and vulnerabilities in real-world security mechanisms, to develop improved designs and understand their security and usability implications, and to identify foundational design principles applicable to the general usable security space. For this grant, the following three themes will be explored.