Project Information
The Chair of Human-Centred Security at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, under the leadership of Prof. Dr. M. Angela Sasse, leads the consortium and, in cooperation with the other project partners, conducts studies to assess the risk perception of citizens and contributes to the development and evaluation of interventions to implement safe habits. In relation to this, an app will be developed. For the app, a concept and the implementation of a gamified strategy for learning safe habits will be developed and improved through a series of evaluation studies with target groups. In cooperation with the Chair of Educational Psychology at the Ruhr University Bochum and Hornetsecurity, further innovative training materials for online communication channels will be developed and their suitability for supporting safe behavior will be evaluated in field studies.
The team of the Chair of Educational Psychology at the Ruhr-University Bochum will contribute to an extended understanding of the mental models of IT security risks and forms of attack held by citizens through controlled studies and, based on learning theory approaches, develop concepts for transforming widespread mental models that do not correspond to real-life conditions (because they contain incomplete or incorrect building blocks). These concepts will provide the basis for the interventions developed in the project and will be tested in controlled experimental psychological studies. The implementation of the interventions themselves will also be accompanied by detailed psychological studies. Together with the empirical data from the user studies, this will generate an accurate picture of how the content of the various interventions is perceived and implemented (or if not, why not).
Prof. Dr. Florian Meißner’s team at Macromedia University of Applied Sciences is responsible for implementing all tasks relating to the communicative aspects of studying and teaching digital competence. This includes the analysis of media-mediated communication in relation to cybersecurity and digital competencies and the development of a communication strategy. In addition, the potential for addressing target groups is identified and communication approaches for strengthening digital competencies are tested and evaluated.
Within the framework of the project, AWARE7 GmbH will address different aspects and digital routines and analyze them in the context of awareness-raising measures. With the help of surveys conducted during events, subjective and objective attributes will be analyzed with the participation of citizens.
As part of the project, Hornetsecurity will develop a training course entitled “Manipulation – not with me!” and evaluate it with both company employees and citizens. The innovative multi-media training package will provide employees and citizens with a broader understanding of social engineering and manipulation techniques. The aim is to clarify how manipulation works online and offline and why it is not always possible to trust your own eyes and ears because of developments such as deepfakes.