An analysis of home user security awareness & education

Abstract

The human factor is a major consideration in securing systems. People use an increasingly wide range of digital devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops and smart TVs, with each device having a different operating system, security configurations and threats. This presents users with an unenviable and potentially insurmountable task of securing them. This paper presents an analysis of efforts being made in providing suitable awareness and education with home users. The analysis shows that whilst significant efforts are made, a focus upon a “one-fits-all” solution that does not take into account individual users — their needs, prior knowledge, learning styles and security priorities — results in unnecessary information overload and a need to spend an excessive amount of time reading web-based content that may have little relevance to them specifically. This review indicates that there is a need for an approach that can provide the users with bespoke awareness information. It is recommended that a holistic information security management system for home users can be proposed and designed which can provide users with bespoke awareness information based on the technologies, applications and services that users use in a manner that is acceptable and timely.