Perceptions of Risk, Benefits and Likelihood of Undertaking Password Management Behaviours: Four Components

摘要

Passwords remain the most common form of authentication in the digital world. People have increasing numbers of passwords, and research suggests that many people undertake risky password management behaviours such as re-using passwords, writing them down and sharing them with friends and colleagues. It is not clear whether people persist in these behaviours because they do not understand the risks involved or the benefits of the behavior outweigh the risk. An online survey was undertaken with 120 MTurk workers in which they rated the risks, benefits and likelihood of undertaking 15 password management behaviours. They also completed the Marlow-Crowne Social Desirability Scale to investigate whether their responses, particularly of the likelihood ratings, were affected by social desirability. An interesting pattern of responses was found with some groups of behaviours more affected by perceptions of the benefits and others equally affected by the perceptions of the risks and the benefits. These results have implications for how information about risky password behaviours in presented to users and general education about password security.