HUMAN FACTORS AFFECTING DIGITAL SECURITY

Abstract [English]

World is getting digital at an exponential rate. Commonplace activities are accomplished increasingly over digital platform to bring in requirement of digital security in place of only physical security. Security (physical or digital or both) is essential for safe storage, retrieval and exchange of physical or digital data and documents. As data/information/knowledge leading to wisdom are increasingly getting endowed with economic values the risk for such assets being pilfered are also increasing. This requires methods for their security being augmented continuously. Society from past to present days are putting their best efforts in this end. Generally, it is achieved through hiding the message from predator’s greedy glare and ensuring its temper-free safe passage to desired destination with deception in various forms. Associated processes are complex and during initial days were executed with various forms of arts and riddles. Over years technology driven solutions were evolved to ensure today’s digital security requirements [7],[8].

Motivation/Background: Presently occurrence of digital security disasters is not few and far between, instead they are alarmingly many, though technology for digital security is improving by leaps and bounds. More often than not, in case of a digital catastrophe dominant foot prints of human involvement are found along with technical snags. It may be noted that technical failure can be assessed and rectified in an organized way though causes of human involvement are difficult to judge as they are much abstract in nature and difficult to measure. Thus, this effort to explore human role in digital disaster.

Method: In present text traditional to most current practices of securing data storage, retrieval and disbursal are touched upon. During earlier days data hiding technique from predator’s glare had been more of an artistic than scientific form. Over years mathematical and statistical approach were induced to make the system more robust though secrets are exposed even today at an alarming rate and at times by their own creators to usher security disasters.  As the discussion progressed results from secondary sources are presented to make a broad statement on current scenario. Finally, indicators like NCSI (National Cyber Security Index) and DDL (Digital Development Level) from NCSI site and HDI (Human Development Index) from Human Development Report of 2019, produced by UNDP, are considered for analysis to have better insight. These figures are available on public domain for general referral [24],[25].

Results: It has been observed that beyond technical complications, human factors play a dominant role in ensuring security.