Why people ignore security alerts up to 87% of the time

[JMH]

Developers, your security warnings are messing with people’s brains, and not in a good way.

In fact, given the poor timing of security warnings popping up, most people – we’re talking about up to 87% in some cases – ignore them.

Ignore, as in, researchers have found that scarcely any brain activity shows up when they measured test subjects via FMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) as security warnings interrupted those subjects while they were trying to do other things, such as input their login or enter a validation code.

The conclusion comes from a paper published in an Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) journal on Thursday by researchers from Brigham Young University in Utah and the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.

The problem, more or less, is one of systems fatigue, the researchers said. As it is, “System-generated alerts are ubiquitous in personal computing,” as well as in our proliferating mobile devices.

Why people ignore security alerts up to 87% of the time – Naked Security

 

[JMH]

People Ignore Security Warnings Because They Come at Bad Times

Scientists from Brigham Young University (BYU) have conducted a study on the reasons why people tend to ignore computer security warnings and the most opportune moment to show these alerts.

Researchers had people complete computer tasks while an fMRI device would record their brain activity. The BYU team discovered that neural activity decreased when security warnings interrupted the user from ongoing tasks.

The research showed that people focused on the security warning when the alert would come after or before an action. They explain this quirk because of our inability to multi-task.

Alerts are inefficient because they interrupt users

From all tested subjects, the BUY team says that 74 percent of people ignored the security messages when they were about to close a window, 79 percent ignored them when they were watching a video, and 87 percent disregarded the alerts when transferring information, such as a file, or entering a confirmation code.

People Ignore Security Warnings Because They Come at Bad Times