Aligning usability and security: a usability study of Polaris

Abstract

Security software is often difficult to use thus leading to poor adoption and degraded security. This paper describes a usability study that was conducted on the software 'Polaris'. This software is an alpha release that uses the Principle of Least Authority (POLA) to deny viruses the authority to edit files. Polaris was designed to align security with usability. The study showed that despite this aim, usability problems remained, especially when the study participants had to make security related decisions. They also showed apathy towards security, and knowingly compromised their security to get work done faster. This study also demonstrates the difficulty in achieving security and usability alignment when the usability is a post hoc consideration added to a developed product, rather than being integrated from the start. The alleviation of usability problems from security software proposed in this paper are threefold: reducing the burden on the user to make security related decisions, counteracting user's apathy by ensuring that the fast way of doing things is the secure way, and integrating security software with the operating system throughout development.