A Demographic Perspective of Smartphone Security and Its Redesigned Notifications

抄録

Billions of smartphones, globally, are running out-of-date Operating Systems (OS) which make them vulnerable to cyberattacks. Behaviours of users in updating their OS vary between different geographic locations considering various demographic factors. For instance, developing countries have a very different stance compared to developed ones on how their users perceive device updates. To assert our claim, we first investigated security behaviours among different demographics in Japan and Tanzania. The results indicate that demographic factors such as culture, income, and geographic location highly impact behaviours of participants on OS updating. However, education and awareness do not seem to have significant impact on security behaviours. Consequently, insecure behaviours were equally exhibited among most participants regardless of their education levels or awareness. We also found that most participants do not update their application software on their smartphones despite being aware. Moreover, in the developing country settings, most participants tend to avoid certain security advice because they necessitate incurring data charges that take up a high percentage of their incomes. Then, we surveyed and evaluated the participants' preferences for different re-designed security notifications for improving update compliance. Finally, we propose color-coded fear-appeal designs for persuading users into updating their devices' application software.