Only play in your comfort zone: interaction methods for improving security awareness on mobile devices

• Published in: Personal and ubiquitous computing Vol. 19; no. 5-6; pp. 941 - 954
• Main Authors: Riedl, Peter, Mayrhofer, Rene, Möller, Andreas, Kranz, Matthias, Lettner, Florian, Holzmann, Clemens, Koelle, Marion
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Springer London 01-08-2015; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Computer information security; Computer Science; Conveying; Cybersecurity; Devices; Email; Hardware; Mobile communication systems; Mobile communications networks; Mobile Computing; Original Article; Personal Computing; Switching; Ubiquitous computing; User Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction; Users; Visualization; Compartmentalization; Mobile security; Separation; Sandboxing; Security zones
• ISSN: 1617-4909; 1617-4917
• DOI: 10.1007/s00779-015-0840-5

In this paper, we study the concept of
security zones
as an intermediate layer of compartmentalization on mobile devices. Each of these security zones is isolated against the other zones and holds a different set of applications and associated user data and may apply different security policies. From a user point of view, they represent different contexts of use for the device, e.g., to distinguish between gaming (private context), payment transactions (secure context), and company-related email (enterprise context). We propose multiple visualization methods for conveying the current security zone information to the user, and interaction methods for switching between zones. Based on an online and a laboratory user study, we evaluated these concepts from a usability point of view. One important result is that in the tension field between security and usability, additional hardware can support the user’s awareness toward their zone context.