Understanding the human aspects of cyber security

CyberBitsEtc. is a website and a blog by Ganna Pogrebna (Professor of Behavioural Economics and Data Science at the University of Birmingham and Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute) and Boris Taratine (Cyber Security Architect and visionary) that “aims to provide the community of practitioners with leading ideas and news about the world of cyber security, cyber defence, as well as about new approaches, which help us better understand cyber spaces”.

Posts focus a lot on the human aspects of cyber security, behavioural design, psychology and behavioural sciences. We highlight those below.

• Cyber Security and Mental Health: What Is the Connection? (Mid-March 2021)
• Celebrating experts in human aspects of cyber security
  – Keri Pearlson (early March 2021)
  – Professor Cleotilde Gonzalez (early March 2021)
  – Professor Debi Ashenden (early March 2021)
  – Mary N. Chaney (early March 2021)
  – Professor Karen Renaud (early March 2021)
• Is fear a good idea? cyber security behavioural design for staff (mid-November 2020)
• Algorithmic manipulation: how we lost the ability to switch off and reflect (early November 2020)
• Cyber security expertise: how to empower people to appropriately pursue cyber issues (early October 2020)
• Five major behavioural misconceptions about cybersecurity (mid September 2020)
• Do you have it in you? The anatomy of human cybersecurity sensors (early August 2020)
• Over saturated, dense, context-dependent: cybersecurity and the market for personal data (end of July 2020)
• Cyberattacks on your brand and IP: technology versus human factors (end of July 2020)
• The psychology of “safe”, “secure” and “private” in cyber spaces (mid-July 2020)
• The privacy relativity principle (late June 2020)
• Why proximity and contact tracing projects need to engage behavioural scientists now (mid-April 2020)
• Kids and passwords: a behavioural science guide for working parents (early April 2020)
• Cyber security of working from home: technology versus psychology (mid-March 2020)
• The cyber security of older and wiser (early March 2020)
• Perceived vulnerability paradox: did COVID-19 actually change the way we think about cybersecurity? (early March 2020)
• Cybercrime is all about creativity (early March 2020)
• From human culture to cyber culture (mid-February 2020)
• Cyber security as a behavioural science
  1. Why cyber security is about human behaviour? (early February 2020)
  2. Risk taking in cyber spaces: “scary” wearables and “friendly” apps (mid-February 2020)
  3. 10 behavioural foundations of business cyber security negligence (mid-February 2020)
  4. Human-as-a-solution: will cyber security organisational culture shift in the face of uncertainty? (mid-March 2020)
  5. Perceptional invariance: 5 psychological reasons why we keep believing cybercriminals (mid-April 2020)