Human Factors in Security and Privacy in IoT (HFSP-IoT)

A special issue of Informatics (ISSN 2227-9709).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 August 2019) | Viewed by 18238

Special Issue Editors

School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
Interests: human-centred security; behavioural security; privacy; human decision making; IoT-related privacy; HCI4D; M4D
Department of Economics and Management, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany
Interests: human-centred security; behavioural security; privacy; human decision making; IoT-related privacy; HCI4D; M4D

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of Informatics welcomes submissions on the topic of security and privacy in the context of IoT, while focusing on the human aspect. IoT includes smart homes, which include devices such as digital assistance (e.g., Google Home and Alexa) and smart health, including devices such as fitness trackers. There are several aspects that are of high interest for this Special Issue. These aspects include:

  • Investigations into the deployment of these solutions, especially studies related to the acceptability of these solutions.;
  • Research into how humans are expected to interact with IoT devices to secure them, how they can be compromised,
  • Research into how humans are expected to configure IoT devices to preserve their privacy, and perceptions of privacy-related IoT behaviours.
  • Studies that reveal new security vulnerabilities or privacy violations facilitated by the design of the “human–IoT” interface.
  • Studies on user awareness and perception of potential security and privacy threats and risks

We would like to include some solutions in our Special Issue: Those that address vulnerabilities and potential privacy invasiveness of IoT devices. Our overall theme is IoT, and we will accept a wide range of papers related to either security or privacy of IoT devices, either in or out of the home.

We encourage authors to submit their original research articles, surveys, reviews, and viewpoint articles labeled as position papers. This Special Issue welcomes applications, theories, models, and frameworks—whether conceptual, analytical, prescriptive, predictive, design-related, or otherwise—that are concerned with (but not limited to) the following topics as they relate to HFSP-IoT.

Prof. Dr. Melanie Volkamer
Prof. Dr. Karen Renaud
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Informatics is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Human-Focused IoT Security
  • Human-Focused IoT Privacy
  • Human-Focused IoT Solutions to Security and Privacy Problems
  • Acceptance of security and privacy IoT Solutions
  • Awareness raising
  • Mental Models about IoT threats and risks
  • Real life observations of human interactions with IoT devices (with a security or privacy slant)
  • Studies of IoT uses in developing countries that report specific security or privacy challenges

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 1459 KiB  
Article
Evaluating Awareness and Perception of Botnet Activity within Consumer Internet-of-Things (IoT) Networks
by Christopher D. McDermott, John P. Isaacs and Andrei V. Petrovski
Informatics 2019, 6(1), 8; https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics6010008 - 18 Feb 2019
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 7714
Abstract
The growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), and demand for low-cost, easy-to-deploy devices, has led to the production of swathes of insecure Internet-connected devices. Many can be exploited and leveraged to perform large-scale attacks on the Internet, such as those seen by [...] Read more.
The growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), and demand for low-cost, easy-to-deploy devices, has led to the production of swathes of insecure Internet-connected devices. Many can be exploited and leveraged to perform large-scale attacks on the Internet, such as those seen by the Mirai botnet. This paper presents a cross-sectional study of how users value and perceive security and privacy in smart devices found within the IoT. It analyzes user requirements from IoT devices, and the importance placed upon security and privacy. An experimental setup was used to assess user ability to detect threats, in the context of technical knowledge and experience. It clearly demonstrated that without any clear signs when an IoT device was infected, it was very difficult for consumers to detect and be situationally aware of threats exploiting home networks. It also demonstrated that without adequate presentation of data to users, there is no clear correlation between level of technical knowledge and ability to detect infected devices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Human Factors in Security and Privacy in IoT (HFSP-IoT))
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22 pages, 1244 KiB  
Article
What Is This Sensor and Does This App Need Access to It?
by Maryam Mehrnezhad and Ehsan Toreini
Informatics 2019, 6(1), 7; https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics6010007 - 24 Jan 2019
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 9752
Abstract
Mobile sensors have already proven to be helpful in different aspects of people’s everyday lives such as fitness, gaming, navigation, etc. However, illegitimate access to these sensors results in a malicious program running with an exploit path. While the users are benefiting from [...] Read more.
Mobile sensors have already proven to be helpful in different aspects of people’s everyday lives such as fitness, gaming, navigation, etc. However, illegitimate access to these sensors results in a malicious program running with an exploit path. While the users are benefiting from richer and more personalized apps, the growing number of sensors introduces new security and privacy risks to end users and makes the task of sensor management more complex. In this paper, first, we discuss the issues around the security and privacy of mobile sensors. We investigate the available sensors on mainstream mobile devices and study the permission policies that Android, iOS and mobile web browsers offer for them. Second, we reflect the results of two workshops that we organized on mobile sensor security. In these workshops, the participants were introduced to mobile sensors by working with sensor-enabled apps. We evaluated the risk levels perceived by the participants for these sensors after they understood the functionalities of these sensors. The results showed that knowing sensors by working with sensor-enabled apps would not immediately improve the users’ security inference of the actual risks of these sensors. However, other factors such as the prior general knowledge about these sensors and their risks had a strong impact on the users’ perception. We also taught the participants about the ways that they could audit their apps and their permissions. Our findings showed that when mobile users were provided with reasonable choices and intuitive teaching, they could easily self-direct themselves to improve their security and privacy. Finally, we provide recommendations for educators, app developers, and mobile users to contribute toward awareness and education on this topic. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Human Factors in Security and Privacy in IoT (HFSP-IoT))
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