“If it’s urgent or it is stopping me from doing something, then i might just go straight at it”: A study into home data security decisions

Abstract

Data security incidents have led to a wave of security awareness campaigns by public institutions targeted towards the so-called home user. Despite this rise, studies have shown poor adoption rates of security measures by the target. In this paper, we conduct a qualitative investigation of 15 home users, analyse the data using Grounded Theory and present a model of factors of data security decisions made in the home. We further consolidate the literature on this topic and analyse our findings against it using meta-synthesis. From this we identify the critical issues that surround data security in the home environment. We finally present a consolidated theoretical model for investigating factors that influence security practices in the home, and suggest future work based on our findings.