Eyes on URLs: Relating visual behavior to safety decisions

Niveta Ramkumar; Vijay Kothari; Caitlin Mills; Ross Koppel; Jim Blythe; Sean Smith; Andrew L. Kun

doi:10.1145/3379155.3391328

Eyes on URLs: Relating visual behavior to safety decisions

Niveta Ramkumar, Vijay Kothari, Caitlin Mills, Ross Koppel, Jim Blythe, Sean Smith, Andrew L. Kun

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Individual and organizational computer security rests on how people interpret and use the security information they are presented. One challenge is determining whether a given URL is safe or not. This paper explores the visual behaviors that users employ to gauge URL safety. We conducted a user study on 20 participants wherein participants classified URLs as safe or unsafe while wearing an eye tracker that recorded eye gaze (where they look) and pupil dilation (a proxy for cognitive effort). Among other things, our findings suggest that: users have a cap on the amount of cognitive resources they are willing to expend on vetting a URL; they tend to believe that the presence of www in the domain name indicates that the URL is safe; and they do not carefully parse the URL beyond what they perceive as the domain name.

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	Proceedings ETRA 2020 Full Papers - ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications
Editors	Stephen N. Spencer
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery
ISBN (Electronic)	9781450371339
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3379155.3391328
State	Published - Feb 6 2020
Externally published	Yes
Event	2020 ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications, ETRA 2020 - Stuttgart, Germany Duration: Jun 2 2020 → Jun 5 2020

Publication series

Name	Eye Tracking Research and Applications Symposium (ETRA)

Conference

Conference	2020 ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications, ETRA 2020
Country/Territory	Germany
City	Stuttgart
Period	6/2/20 → 6/5/20

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 ACM.

Keywords

cognitive psychology
eye tracking
phishing
reading
usable security
user study

Publisher link

10.1145/3379155.3391328

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Cite this

Ramkumar, N., Kothari, V., Mills, C., Koppel, R., Blythe, J., Smith, S., & Kun, A. L. (2020). Eyes on URLs: Relating visual behavior to safety decisions. In S. N. Spencer (Ed.), Proceedings ETRA 2020 Full Papers - ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (Eye Tracking Research and Applications Symposium (ETRA)). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3379155.3391328

Eyes on URLs: Relating visual behavior to safety decisions. / Ramkumar, Niveta; Kothari, Vijay; Mills, Caitlin et al.
Proceedings ETRA 2020 Full Papers - ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications. ed. / Stephen N. Spencer. Association for Computing Machinery, 2020. (Eye Tracking Research and Applications Symposium (ETRA)).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Ramkumar, N, Kothari, V, Mills, C, Koppel, R, Blythe, J, Smith, S & Kun, AL 2020, Eyes on URLs: Relating visual behavior to safety decisions. in SN Spencer (ed.), Proceedings ETRA 2020 Full Papers - ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications. Eye Tracking Research and Applications Symposium (ETRA), Association for Computing Machinery, 2020 ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications, ETRA 2020, Stuttgart, Germany, 6/2/20. https://doi.org/10.1145/3379155.3391328

Ramkumar N, Kothari V, Mills C, Koppel R, Blythe J, Smith S et al. Eyes on URLs: Relating visual behavior to safety decisions. In Spencer SN, editor, Proceedings ETRA 2020 Full Papers - ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications. Association for Computing Machinery. 2020. (Eye Tracking Research and Applications Symposium (ETRA)). doi: 10.1145/3379155.3391328

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Eyes on URLs: Relating visual behavior to safety decisions

Abstract

Publication series

Conference

Bibliographical note

Keywords

Publisher link

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