2014-01-07
Abstract
Researchers study the psychology of malware warnings.
Copyright © 2014 Virus Bulletin
Researchers from the University of Cambridge have conducted a study into the psychology of malware warnings. Their research indicates that people have a tendency to ignore non-specific warning messages such as ‘this web page might harm your computer’, while paying more attention to warnings that contain specific details – such as that a page might ‘try to infect your computer with malware designed to steal your bank account and credit card details in order to defraud you’. They also found that there was a better response to direct warnings that appeared to have come from a position of authority – for example users would avoid a page if a warning stated that it had been ‘reported and confirmed by our security team to contain malware’. The researchers also discovered that those who turned off browser warnings tended to be people who ignored warnings anyway – typically men who distrusted authority and either couldn’t understand the warnings or considered themselves IT experts. The full paper, including the research team’s interesting conclusions, can be downloaded from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2374379 (PDF).
