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Could psychology and economics aid online security?

A University of Cambridge expert specialising in information security is to give a talk at a Leicester university exploring whether psychology and economics could be used to help develop better online security frameworks.

Professor Ross Anderson will discuss the matter during a public talk at De Montfort University on April 20th.

According to the expert, the internet security landscape needs a new approach because despite the development of better encryption, authentication and filtering mechanisms, the problem still persists.

The human element can not be ignored because "as systems get harder to attack, the bad guys attack the users instead - phishing only got properly going in 2004, but by 2006 cost British banks £35m", he said.

"We now know that most information security mechanisms are too hard to use, being designed by geeks for geeks. We urgently need to introduce bright ideas from psychology and human computer interface design."

Cyber crooks routinely employ social engineering tactics that play on human emotions to attack end users with phishing scams.

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