Human Factors in Security and Privacy. 3 credits, 3 contact hours

Catalog description

Prerequisites: Students should have background and experience with computer and network security concepts at a level achieved in a typical undergraduate computer security course. When real-world cybersecurity incidents occur, the root cause is often not the technology on its own but the way people interact with it. Understanding and accounting for these human factors is crucial if we want to achieve meaningful security and privacy. This course will cover a range of user-interface and human-computer interaction problems experienced by real users. It will teach a variety of empirical research methods for evaluating the usable security properties of systems, as well as techniques for designing systems to avoid usability issues. In addition to learning from the latest research in the field of human-centered security, students will have many opportunities to gain hands-on experience applying methods from the literature, culminating in a major research and development project that students can add to their portfolios.