Security News High % of Security Messages Ignored by Users

Logethica

Level 13
Thread author
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Jun 24, 2016
636
9,331
1,167
UK
People ignore software security warnings up to 90 percent of the time:

A new study from BYU, in collaboration with Google Chrome engineers, finds the status quo of warning messages appearing haphazardly—while people are typing, watching a video, uploading files, etc.—results in up to 90 percent of users disregarding them...

peopleignore.png


Researchers found these times are less effective because of "dual task interference," a neural limitation where even simple tasks can't be simultaneously performed without significant performance loss. Or, in human terms, multitasking.

"We found that the brain can't handle multitasking very well," said study coauthor and BYU information systems professor Anthony Vance. "Software developers categorically present these messages without any regard to what the user is doing. They interrupt us constantly and our research shows there's a high penalty that comes by presenting these messages at random times."

For example, 74 percent of people in the study ignored security messages that popped up while they were on the way to close a web page window. Another 79 percent ignored the messages if they were watching a video. And a whopping 87 percent disregarded the messages while they were transferring information, in this case, a confirmation code...

To read the full article please follow the link at the top of the page

 
Even if i close one by accident i go back and read it if possible. Though as @Windows_Security constantly preaches a novice user will just click on anything in order for the message to go away. Security alerts for such users mean nothing so protection not relying on them should be provided.
Luckily for those users, @Windows_Security made cool guides and posts on how to achieve that.
 
I know many that have ignored these messages, mainly stemming from the inability to understand them completely, or simply do not care about them, as they just want to use their system and leave it up to someone else to fix it once broken.
 
Thanks for the poll !

I checked : I have never Ignored a Security Message.
But, because there are false security messages when browsing, I never directly clicked to install the tool / potential malware :)

without have made verification /checks.
 
Last edited:
For sure I will not ignore any security messages since I'm very confident my system is in lockdown mode. Hence, if there's any security issues pop-up means there must be something compromising the system. Thats where I need to dig out.