arXiv subjects

Hazel Murray

Publications and source records attributed to Hazel Murray.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Cybersafety Card Game: Empowering Digital Educators to Teach Cybersafety to Older Adults

Digital inequality remains a significant barrier for many older adults, limiting their ability to navigate online spaces securely and confidently while increasing their susceptibility to cyber threats. In response, we propose a novel shedding-type card game for older adults to conceptually learn and reinforce cyber hygiene practices in educational settings. We asked digital educators to participate as players alongside older adults (n = 16), departing from their usual role as teachers, they collaborated and shared a unique learning experience. The cybersafety game addresses 4 key topics: handling scams, password management, responding to cyber attacks, and staying private. We adopted a mixed-method approach of think-aloud playtesting, semi-structured interviews, and surveys to evaluate the game's reception and impact. Participants reported highly favorable gameplay experiences and found the cybersafety advice useful. Player feedback informed game modifications, detailed in this paper, to further enhance the game's usability and educational value.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2025

"I'm 73, you can't expect me to have multiple passwords": Password Management Concerns and Solutions of Irish Older Adults

Based on Irish older adult's perceptions, practices, and challenges regarding password management, the goal of this study was to compile suitable advice that can benefit this demographic. To achieve this, we first conducted semi structured interviews (n=37), we then collated advice based on best practice and what we learned from these interviews. We facilitated two independent focus groups (n=31) to evaluate and adjust this advice and tested the finalized advice through an observational study (n=15). The participants were aged between 59 and 86 and came from various counties in Ireland, both rural and urban. The findings revealed that managing multiple passwords was a significant source of frustration, leading some participants to adopt novel and informal strategies for storing them. A notable hesitation to adopt digital password managers and passphrases was also observed. Participants appreciated guidance on improving their password practices, with many affirming that securely writing down passwords was a practical strategy. Irish older adults demonstrated strong intuition regarding cybersecurity, notably expressing concerns over knowledge-based security checks used by banks and government institutions. This study aims to contribute to the aggregation of practical password advice suited to older adults, making password security more manageable and less burdensome for this demographic.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2025

"It's Like Not Being Able to Read and Write": Narrowing the Digital Divide for Older Adults and Leveraging the Role of Digital Educators in Ireland

As digital services increasingly replace traditional analogue systems, ensuring that older adults are not left behind is critical to fostering inclusive access. This study explores how digital educators support older adults in developing essential digital skills, drawing insights from interviews with $34$ educators in Ireland. These educators, both professional and volunteer, offer instruction through a range of formats, including workshops, remote calls, and in-person sessions. Our findings highlight the importance of personalized, step-by-step guidance tailored to older adults' learning needs, as well as fostering confidence through hands-on engagement with technology. Key challenges identified include limited transportation options, poor internet connectivity, outdated devices, and a lack of familial support for learning. To address these barriers, we propose enhanced public funding, expanded access to resources, and sustainable strategies such as providing relevant and practical course materials. Additionally, innovative tools like simulated online platforms for practicing digital transactions can help reduce anxiety and enhance digital literacy among older adults. This study underscores the vital role that digital educators play in bridging the digital divide, creating a more inclusive, human-centered approach to digital learning for older adults.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2024

Enhancing Personalised Cybersecurity Guidance for Older Adults in Ireland

The term `Digital Divide' emerged in the mid-1990s, highlighting the gap between those with access to emerging information technologies and those without. This gap persists for older adults even in the 21st century. To address this, our study focused on how older adults in Ireland can feel safer online. We conducted a two-phase study. In Phase I, 58 participants used Dot Voting to identify top cyber-security priorities, including password management, privacy, and avoiding scams. This informed Phase II, where we held focus groups with 31 participants from rural and urban communities in Ireland. Researchers provided tailored advice through presentations and leaflets, followed by open discussions. Our findings show that, despite being highly aware of cyber-scams, older adults remain very concerned about them. Participants expressed hesitation about using online password managers and two-factor authentication but valued advice on privacy and tools that can help them feel more in control online.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2024

Development of a cyber risk assessment tool for Irish small business owners

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly vulnerable to cyber threats due to limited resources and cybersecurity expertise, in addition to an increasingly hostile cyber threat environment at national and international levels. This study aims to improve the cyber resilience amongst SMEs by developing a national risk assessment tool. This research is guided by three key questions: 1. What current international SME risk assessment tools are available and supported or endorsed by national cybersecurity centres? 2. How can a risk assessment tool be created that is accessible to SME owners with little to no cybersecurity knowledge? 3. What are the key areas of cybersecurity risks for SMEs? To answer these questions, a comprehensive review of existing risk assessment tools was carried out. Through iterative collaboration with SMEs, the development of a user-friendly tool that simplifies risk for non-expert users was made possible.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2024

Quantum Computing Education for Computer Science Students: Bridging the Gap with Layered Learning and Intuitive Analogies

Quantum computing presents a transformative potential for the world of computing. However, integrating this technology into the curriculum for computer science students who lack prior exposure to quantum mechanics and advanced mathematics remains a challenging task. This paper proposes a scaffolded learning approach aimed at equipping computer science students with essential quantum principles. By introducing foundational quantum concepts through relatable analogies and a layered learning approach based on classical computation, this approach seeks to bridge the gap between classical and quantum computing. This differs from previous approaches which build quantum computing fundamentals from the prerequisite of linear algebra and mathematics. The paper offers a considered set of intuitive analogies for foundation quantum concepts including entanglement, superposition, quantum data structures and quantum algorithms. These analogies coupled with a computing-based layered learning approach, lay the groundwork for a comprehensive teaching methodology tailored for undergraduate third level computer science students.

cs.ET↗

arXiv2021

Quantum multi-factor authentication

We present a quantum multi-factor authentication mechanism based on the hidden-matching quantum communication complexity problem. It offers step-up graded authentication for users via a quantum token. In this paper, we outline the protocol, demonstrate that it can be used in a largely classical setting, explain how it can be implemented in SASL, and discuss arising security features. We also offer a comparison between our mechanism and current state-of-the-art multi-factor authentication mechanisms.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2020

Costs and benefits of authentication advice

Authentication security advice is given with the goal of guiding users and organisations towards secure actions and practices. In this paper, we demonstrate that security advice can be ambiguous, contradictory and at times may not even have any clear benefits. We expand on current work by defining a formal approach to identifying costs of security advice and instigate a user study to identify the costs that apply to a large range of authentication advice. We also apply a simple framework for analysing the authentication related security benefits of advice. This allows us to identify costs and benefits for all classes of security advice.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2020

Multi-armed bandit approach to password guessing

The multi-armed bandit is a mathematical interpretation of the problem a gambler faces when confronted with a number of different machines (bandits). The gambler wants to explore different machines to discover which machine offers the best rewards, but simultaneously wants to exploit the most profitable machine. A password guesser is faced with a similar dilemma. They have lists of leaked password sets, dictionaries of words, and demographic information about the users, but they don't know which dictionary will reap the best rewards. In this paper we provide a framework for using the multi-armed bandit problem in the context of the password guesser and use some examples to show that it can be effective.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2020

Implementing a Quantum Coin Scheme

Quantum computing has the power to break current cryptographic systems, disrupting online banking, shopping, data storage and communications. Quantum computing also has the power to support stronger more resistant technologies. In this paper, we describe a digital cash scheme created by Dmitry Gavinsky, which utilises the capability of quantum computing. We contribute by setting out the methods for implementing this scheme. For both the creation and verification of quantum coins we convert the algebraic steps into computing steps. As part of this, we describe the methods used to convert information stored on classical bits to information stored on quantum bits.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2018

Exploring the Impact of Password Dataset Distribution on Guessing

Leaks from password datasets are a regular occurrence. An organization may defend a leak with reassurances that just a small subset of passwords were taken. In this paper we show that the leak of a relatively small number of text-based passwords from an organizations' stored dataset can lead to a further large collection of users being compromised. Taking a sample of passwords from a given dataset of passwords we exploit the knowledge we gain of the distribution to guess other samples from the same dataset. We show theoretically and empirically that the distribution of passwords in the sample follows the same distribution as the passwords in the whole dataset. We propose a function that measures the ability of one distribution to estimate another. Leveraging this we show that a sample of passwords leaked from a given dataset, will compromise the remaining passwords in that dataset better than a sample leaked from another source.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2017

Evaluating Password Advice

Password advice is constantly circulated by standards agencies, companies, websites and specialists. But there appears to be great diversity in terms of the advice that is given. Users have noticed that different websites are enforcing different restrictions. For example, requiring different combinations of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters. We collected password advice and found that the advice distributed by one organization can directly contradict advice given by another. Our paper aims to illuminate interesting characteristics for a sample of the password advice distributed. We also create a framework for identifying the costs associated with implementing password advice. In doing so we identify a reason for why password advice is often both derided and ignored.

cs.CR↗