Advancements in information technology often task users with complex and consequential privacy and security decisions. A growing body of research has investigated individuals' choices in the presence of privacy and information security tradeoffs, the decision-making hurdles affecting those choices, and ways to mitigate such hurdles. This article provides a multidisciplinary assessment of the literature pertaining to privacy and security decision making. It focuses on research on assisting individuals' privacy and security choices with soft paternalistic interventions that nudge users toward more beneficial choices. The article discusses potential benefits of those interventions, highlights their shortcomings, and identifies key ethical, design, and research challenges. CCS Concepts: r Security and privacy → Human and societal aspects of security and privacy; r Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI); Interaction design;
Abstract. Security dialogs warn users about security threats on their computers; however, people often ignore these important communications. This paper explores the links between warning dialog design and user understanding of, motivation to respond to, and actual response to computer security warnings. We measured these variables through a 733-participant online study that tested a set of four existing computer security warnings and two redesigned versions of each across low-and high-risk conditions. In some cases our redesigned warnings significantly increased participants' understanding and motivation to take the safest action; however, we were not able to show that participants' responses were differentiated between low and high risk conditions. We also observed that motivation seemed to be a more important predictor of taking the safest action than understanding. However, other factors that may contribute to this behavior warrant further investigation.
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