The psychology of computer insecurity - “bugs in the
wetware”
No matter how sophisticated a computer
security system, the weak link in keeping data safe is human
behaviour.
In the final lecture in the University of
Auckland Gibbons Lecture Series, honorary research associate
in the Department of Computer Science, Peter Gutmann,
discusses the bugs in the “wetware” that is the human
mind.
Dr Gutmann discusses why security warnings designed
by computer engineers and developers are so often ignored by
users and observes that fixing the problem may not be
possible because it is based on behaviour that is also
critical to our functioning as humans.
Dr Gutmann is an
honorary research associate of the Department of Computer
Science at the University of Auckland. His research is on
the design and analysis of cryptographic security
architectures and security usability. He helped write the
popular PGP encryption package and has authored a number of
papers and RFCs on security and encryption.
He is the
author of the open source cryptlib security toolkit
"Cryptographic Security Architecture: Design and
Verification" (Springer, 2003), and also has an upcoming
book "Engineering Security".
In his spare time he pokes
holes in whatever security systems and mechanisms catch his
attention and grumbles about the lack of consideration of
human factors in designing security systems.
Lecture
details: 6pm (for a 6.30pm start) Thursday 8 May, Room
OGGB3/260-092, Level-0, Owen G Glenn Building, University of
Auckland, Grafton Rd. Public parking is available in the
basement of the Owen G Glenn Building at 12 Grafton
Rd.
The Gibbons Public Lecture series is held annually and
open to the public. Entry is free. The lectures in this
series will be streamed live.
For more information go to:
https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/gibbons_lectures/#next
ENDS