Methodology matters: doing research in the behavioral and social sciences
Human-computer interaction
Users' conceptions of risks and harms on the web: a comparative study
CHI '02 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Usability Engineering
IEEE Security and Privacy
Security in the wild: user strategies for managing security as an everyday, practical problem
Personal and Ubiquitous Computing
Software—Practice & Experience - Grid Security
Social navigation as a model for usable security
SOUPS '05 Proceedings of the 2005 symposium on Usable privacy and security
Decision strategies and susceptibility to phishing
SOUPS '06 Proceedings of the second symposium on Usable privacy and security
Looking for trouble: understanding end-user security management
Proceedings of the 2007 symposium on Computer human interaction for the management of information technology
Sesame: informing user security decisions with system visualization
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
You've been warned: an empirical study of the effectiveness of web browser phishing warnings
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
A framework for reasoning about the human in the loop
UPSEC'08 Proceedings of the 1st Conference on Usability, Psychology, and Security
"When I am on Wi-Fi, I am fearless": privacy concerns & practices in eeryday Wi-Fi use
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Revealing hidden context: improving mental models of personal firewall users
Proceedings of the 5th Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security
Privacy and security: Usable security: how to get it
Communications of the ACM - Scratch Programming for All
Personal firewalls-One more step towards comprehensive security
Network Security
Promoting a physical security mental model for personal firewall warnings
CHI '11 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
A brick wall, a locked door, and a bandit: a physical security metaphor for firewall warnings
Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security
CodeShield: towards personalized application whitelisting
Proceedings of the 28th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference
Mental models of verifiability in voting
Vote-ID'13 Proceedings of the 4th international conference on E-Voting and Identity
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Even though personal firewalls are an important aspect of security for the users of personal computers, little attention has been given to their usability. We conducted semi-structured interviews with a diverse set of participants to gain an understanding of their knowledge, requirements, perceptions, and misconceptions of personal firewalls. Through a qualitative analysis of the data, we found that most of our participants were not aware of the functionality of personal firewalls and their role in protecting computers. Most of our participants required different levels of protection from their personal firewalls in different contexts. The most important factors that affect their requirements are their activity, the network settings, and the people in the network. The requirements and preferences for their interaction with a personal firewall varied based on their levels of security knowledge and expertise. We discuss implications of our results for the design of personal firewalls. We recommend integrating the personal firewall with other security applications, adjusting its behavior based on users' levels of security knowledge, and providing different levels of protection based on context. We also provide implications for automating personal firewall decisions and designing better warnings and notices.