TY - GEN

T1 - How Does Usable Security (Not) End Up in Software Products?

T2 - 43rd IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, SP 2022

AU - Gutfleisch, Marco

AU - Klemmer, Jan H.

AU - Busch, Niklas

AU - Acar, Yasemin

AU - Sasse, M. Angela

AU - Fahl, Sascha

N1 - Funding Information: This research was partially funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC 2092 CASA – 390781972. We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback and for helping us to improve this paper. Furthermore, we want to thank all interviewees for supporting our research.

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - For software to be secure in practice, users need to be willing and able to appropriately use security features. These features are usually implemented by software professionals during the software development process (SDP), who may be unable to consider the usability of these mechanisms. While research has made progress in supporting developers in creating secure software products, very little attention has been paid to whether and how these security features are made usable. In a semi-structured interview study with 25 software professionals (software developers, designers, architects), we explored how they and other decision-makers encounter and deal with security and usability during the software development process in their companies. Based on 37 hours of interview recordings, we qualitatively analyzed and investigated 23 distinct development contexts in detail. In addition to individual awareness and factors that directly influence the implementation phase, we identify a high impact of contextual factors, such as stakeholder pressure, presence of expertise, and collaboration culture, and the specific implementation of the SDP on usable security in software products. We conclude our work by highlighting important gaps, such as studying and improving contextual factors that contribute to usable security and discussing potential improvements of the status quo.

AB - For software to be secure in practice, users need to be willing and able to appropriately use security features. These features are usually implemented by software professionals during the software development process (SDP), who may be unable to consider the usability of these mechanisms. While research has made progress in supporting developers in creating secure software products, very little attention has been paid to whether and how these security features are made usable. In a semi-structured interview study with 25 software professionals (software developers, designers, architects), we explored how they and other decision-makers encounter and deal with security and usability during the software development process in their companies. Based on 37 hours of interview recordings, we qualitatively analyzed and investigated 23 distinct development contexts in detail. In addition to individual awareness and factors that directly influence the implementation phase, we identify a high impact of contextual factors, such as stakeholder pressure, presence of expertise, and collaboration culture, and the specific implementation of the SDP on usable security in software products. We conclude our work by highlighting important gaps, such as studying and improving contextual factors that contribute to usable security and discussing potential improvements of the status quo.

KW - usable-security,-usability,-security,-software-development-process,-software-engineering,-interview-study

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85135922305&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1109/SP46214.2022.9833756

DO - 10.1109/SP46214.2022.9833756

M3 - Conference contribution

AN - SCOPUS:85135922305

SN - 978-1-6654-1317-6

T3 - Proceedings - IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy

SP - 893

EP - 910

BT - Proceedings

PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.

Y2 - 23 May 2022 through 26 May 2022

ER -