The number of cyber-attacks around the world exploded in 2020: exploiting the Covid-19 pandemic as an opportunity for cybercriminals to take advantage of the shift in focus towards smart working and hospital staff transferred to the frontline.
"If It's Important It Will Be A Headline": Cybersecurity Information Seeking in Older Adults
This paper (May 2019) comes from PANACEA partner, Northumbria University as an early example of research feeding into the development of its toolkit with techological solutions and tools for traing, risk governance and secure behaviour nudging.
Abstract: Older adults are increasingly vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks and scams. Yet we know relatively little about their understanding of cybersecurity, their information-seeking behaviours, and their trusted sources of information and advice in this domain.
Methods: The study team conducted 22 semi-structured interviews with community-dwelling older adults in order to explore their cybersecurity information seeking behaviours.
Results: Following a thematic analysis of these interviews, the study team developed a cybersecurity information access framework that highlights shortcomings in older adults’ choice of information resources. Specifically, the authors find that older users prioritise social resources based on availability, rather than cybersecurity expertise, and that they avoid using the Internet for cybersecurity information searches despite using it for other domains.
Finally, the paper discusses the design of cybersecurity information dissemination strategies for older users, incorporating favoured sources such as TV adverts and radio programming.
PANACEA Research perspectives: PANACEA partners from Northumbria University are the involved in the development of a secure behaviour nudging solution, offering a range of innovative tools to assist the user in identifying: 1) Insecure behaviour in the workplace. 2) Factors driving this behaviour and barriers to secure behaviour. 3) Appropriate techniques and ‘nudges’ to encourage more secure behaviour. 4) Tools to assess and re-assess the organisation’s cybersecurity position and needs on a reiterative basis.
Keywords: cybersecurity attacks and scams, secure cyber behaviour
Lookout Watch entry date: 18/09/2019