Prof. Dr. Angela Sasse, Konstantin Fischer (Human-Centred Security, Ruhr University Bochum)

Project description

In the Cluster of Excellence "CASA - Cyber Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries", an interdisciplinary research team works on key research challenges that are important for enabling sustainable security against large-scale adversaries. The research project “Humans and Cryptography” is part of the Research Hub D that focuses on investigating the interaction of human behavior and IT security. Specifically, the project aims to understand and tackle the reasons for the lack of adoption of cryptographic solutions by users. Cryptography has a particular history of producing solutions that could be deployed to tackle some of the common security problems today but that are not being adopted, used incorrectly, or deployed in a way that negatively creates too many problems for individual users and organizations. Hence, the project investigates the blockers to the adoption of cryptographic solutions and ways of overcoming them through design, communication, and collaboration. Moreover, the project aims to analyze how new cryptographic solutions could be applied in a way that fosters understanding and encourages adoption.