PowerQoPE: A Personal Quality of Internet Protection and Experience Configurator

Abstract

Security configuration remains obscure for many Internet users, especially those with limited computing skills. This obscurity exposes such users to various Internet attacks. Recently, there has been an increase in cyberattacks targeted at individuals due to the remote workforce imposed by the COVID 19 pandemic. These attacks have exposed the inefficiencies of the non-human-centric implementation of Internet security mechanisms and protocols. Security research usually positions users as the weakest link in the security ecosystem, making system and protocol developers exclude the users in the development process. This stereotypical approach has negatively affected users’ security uptake. Mostly, security systems are not comprehensible for an average user, negatively affecting performance and Quality of Experience. This causes the users to shun using security mechanisms. Building on human-centric cybersecurity research, we present a tool that aids in configuring Internet Quality of protection and Experience (referred to as PowerQoPE in this paper). We describe its architecture and design methodology and finally present evaluation results. Preliminary evaluation results show that user-centric and data-driven approaches in the design of Internet security systems improves users’ Quality of Experience. The controlled experiment results show that users are not really stupid; they know what they want and that given proper security configuration platforms with proper framing of components and information, they can make optimal security decisions.