Children’s Password-Related Books: Efficacious, Vexatious and Incongruous

Abstract

Software is developed specifically for children and this often requires them to authenticate themselves, usually by entering a password. Password hygiene is important for children, because the principles they learn in early life will often endure across their life span. Children learn from their parents, siblings, teachers, and peers. They also learn from educational resources, such as children's books. We carried out a content analysis of a range of children's books that aims to educate children about passwords. We used directional coding, as informed by a systematic literature review of methods, such as those used in other content analysis-based studies of children's books. We examined the principles the books taught, and whether these were correct. We also analysed how the books portrayed the genders of characters, in various roles. We found that principle coverage was variable, with books sometimes teaching outdated principles. Genders were evenly represented in the books. Finally, our analysis revealed conflation of the terms "safety" and "security" in the cyber domain. We conclude the paper by justifying the adjectives we use in the title.

The impact of financial deprivation on children’s cybersecurity knowledge & abilities

“…Such interventions need to be designed with the target educational environments in mind (Verma and Verma, 1994 ; McKay et al, 1978 ). Cybersecurity books have been found to frequently contain outdated or incorrect information (Renaud & Prior, 2021a ). While there are several high quality online password education resources available e.g.…”

“…Much online advice related to password “best practice” is outdated (Renaud and Prior, 2021b ; Prior & Renaud, 2020 ). The relatively poor knowledge demonstrated (Section 4.1 ) is likely to have been impacted by the fact that much of the population has not yet caught up with the latest guidelines.…”

Who Is Best Placed to Support Cyber Responsibilized UK Parents?

“…A variety of cybersecurity resources are freely available [45]. However, there are issues with many of these, in particular books, which have often been found to contain out-of-date or incorrect guidance [46]. In addition, even when children are able to engage independently with the many online resources [38], they still require input from adults to explain how to apply the principles.…”

“…Queen Camilla and the Princess of Wales promote the reading of books to children [61]. However, children's books do not provide up-to-date cyber security principles [46]. This is unsurprising since the advice responds to dynamic and ever-changing cyber threats, and books, in print format, cannot possibly change as quickly.…”