Understanding the Role of Incentives in Security Behavior

Abstract

A key challenge for researchers has been to affect change in user security behavior in organizations. Several theories from different domains have been used for understanding and changing user security behavior including deterrence, fear appeals, and education; however, the success of these approaches has been low. In this research we examine the role of financial incentives in changing user behavior; we specifically provide incentives to users for good security practices. The study attempts to switch user behavior such that they adopt good security habits however it recognizes the limitations of extrinsic rewards in being temporary and couples the extrinsic rewards to affect intrinsic motivation through use of nudges. The field study shows positive results however the number of subjects in our study was small (24). Our goal is to extend the study by large scale data collection to further validate our results.