A Generic Multimodels-Based Approach for the Analysis of Usability and Security of Authentication Mechanisms

Nicolas Broders* (Corresponding author), Célia Martinie (Corresponding author), Philippe Palanque, Marco Winckler, Kimmo Halunen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference article in proceedingsScientificpeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Authentication is a security function, added on top of an interactive system, whose role is to reduce organizations and users’ risks to grant access to sensitive data or critical resources to unauthorized users. Such a security function interfere with users’ goals and tasks by adding articulatory activities, which affect each dimension of usability. In order to mitigate their negative effect on usability, security functions must be designed following a User Centered Approach. In order to ensure their efficiency in terms of security, security processes have to be followed. With this respect, this paper focuses on the representation of user tasks (using task modelling techniques) to be performed during authentication. For security aspects, we propose the use of an approach called “attack trees” which represents threats and their effect. To integrate both aspects in a single framework, we propose an extended task modelling technique that is able to represent explicitly security threats and their potential effect together with users’ tasks performed during authentication. We show how such models can be used to compare the usability and the security of different authentication mechanisms and to make explicit conflicts between these properties. We exemplify the use of the approach on two sophisticated authentication mechanisms demonstrating its applicability and its usefulness for representing and assessing in a single framework, usability and security of these security mechanism.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationHuman-Centered Software Engineering
Subtitle of host publication8th IFIP WG 13.2 International Working Conference, HCSE 2020, Proceedings
EditorsRegina Bernhaupt, Carmelo Ardito, Stefan Sauer
PublisherSpringer
Pages61-83
ISBN (Electronic)978-3-030-64266-2
ISBN (Print)978-3-030-64265-5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020
MoE publication typeA4 Article in a conference publication
Event8th IFIP WG 13.2 International Conference on Human-Centered Software Engineering, HCSE 2020: Online - Virtual, Eindhoven, Netherlands
Duration: 30 Nov 20202 Dec 2020

Publication series

SeriesLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume12481 LNCS
ISSN0302-9743

Conference

Conference8th IFIP WG 13.2 International Conference on Human-Centered Software Engineering, HCSE 2020
Country/TerritoryNetherlands
CityEindhoven
Period30/11/202/12/20

Keywords

  • Authentication
  • Security
  • Tasks descriptions
  • Usability

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