A Framework for Investigating Human/Computer Interaction from a Security Perspective

The unprecedented increase of potential threats to computer systems serves as a premise to the prioritisation of security within end-user systems and applications. Organisations and institutions design different ways of providing security to their systems. Antivirus software and passwords are the common tools used to achieve security. However, the traditional use of passwords for information security is a cause for concern. Some systems require frequent change of passwords and this may entail users writing down their passwords each time they change. This may expose their passwords to unauthorised users. Computer users usually choose passwords that are easy to recall and this renders computer systems at institutions like universities inherently insecure. In this paper we describe a work-in-progress that investigates computer security threats mitigated by user's desire for convenience in choosing passwords. Our work further investigates non technical actions used to enforce systems security.