Human factors are an essential aspect of cybersecurity. Take for example credit card payments on the web. A protocol for reducing fraud by authenticating the cardholder, 3-D Secure, was introduced by VISA in 1999 and adopted by other payment networks, but has seen limited deployment because of poor usability. Now 3-D Secure 2.0 attempts to reduce friction by asking the merchant to share privacy-sensitive customer information with the bank and giving up on cardholder authentication for transactions deemed low-risk based on that data. A protocol with better usability would provide better security without impinging on cardholder privacy.
But human factors are not limited to the usability of cybersecurity defenses. In biometric authentication, human factors are the very essence of the defense. Human factors are also of the essence in cybersecurity attacks such as phishing and social engineering attacks, and play a role in enabling or spreading attacks that exploit technical vulnerabilities.
The 1st International Conference on HCI for Cybersecurity, Privacy and Trust (HCI-CPT) recognizes the multifaceted role played by human factors in cybersecurity, and intends to promote research that views Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) as “a fundamental pillar for designing more secure systems”. A call for participation can be found here.
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