Maass, Max ; Clement, Marc-Pascal ; Hollick, Matthias (2021)
Snail Mail Beats Email Any Day: On Effective Operator Security Notifications in the Internet.
ARES 2021: The 16th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security. Vienna, Austria (17.-20.08.2021)
doi: 10.1145/3465481.3465743
Conference or Workshop Item, Bibliographie
This is the latest version of this item.
Abstract
In the era of large-scale internet scanning, misconfigured websites are a frequent cause of data leaks and security incidents. Previous research has investigated sending automated email notifications to operators of insecure or compromised websites, but has often met with limited success due to challenges in address data quality, spam filtering, and operator distrust and disinterest. While several studies have investigated the design and phrasing of notification emails in a bid to increase their effectiveness, the use of other contact channels has remained almost completely unexplored due to the required effort and cost. In this paper, we investigate two methods to increase notification success: the use of letters as an alternative delivery medium, and the description of attack scenarios to incentivize remediation. We evaluate these factors as part of a notification campaign utilizing manually-collected address information from 1359 German website operators and focusing on unintentional information leaks from web servers. We find that manually collected addresses lead to large increases in delivery rates compared to previous work, and letters were markedly more effective than emails, increasing remediation rates by up to 25 percentage points. Counterintuitively, providing detailed descriptions of possible attacks can actually decrease remediation rates, highlighting the need for more research into how notifications are perceived by recipients.
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item |
|---|---|
| Erschienen: | 2021 |
| Creators: | Maass, Max ; Clement, Marc-Pascal ; Hollick, Matthias |
| Type of entry: | Bibliographie |
| Title: | Snail Mail Beats Email Any Day: On Effective Operator Security Notifications in the Internet |
| Language: | English |
| Date: | 2021 |
| Place of Publication: | Darmstadt |
| Publisher: | Association for Computing Machinery |
| Book Title: | The 16th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security |
| Collation: | 13 Seiten |
| Event Title: | ARES 2021: The 16th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security |
| Event Location: | Vienna, Austria |
| Event Dates: | 17.-20.08.2021 |
| DOI: | 10.1145/3465481.3465743 |
| Corresponding Links: | |
| Abstract: | In the era of large-scale internet scanning, misconfigured websites are a frequent cause of data leaks and security incidents. Previous research has investigated sending automated email notifications to operators of insecure or compromised websites, but has often met with limited success due to challenges in address data quality, spam filtering, and operator distrust and disinterest. While several studies have investigated the design and phrasing of notification emails in a bid to increase their effectiveness, the use of other contact channels has remained almost completely unexplored due to the required effort and cost. In this paper, we investigate two methods to increase notification success: the use of letters as an alternative delivery medium, and the description of attack scenarios to incentivize remediation. We evaluate these factors as part of a notification campaign utilizing manually-collected address information from 1359 German website operators and focusing on unintentional information leaks from web servers. We find that manually collected addresses lead to large increases in delivery rates compared to previous work, and letters were markedly more effective than emails, increasing remediation rates by up to 25 percentage points. Counterintuitively, providing detailed descriptions of possible attacks can actually decrease remediation rates, highlighting the need for more research into how notifications are perceived by recipients. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | information leakage, web security, notification study |
| Classification DDC: | 000 Generalities, computers, information > 004 Computer science |
| Divisions: | 20 Department of Computer Science 20 Department of Computer Science > Sichere Mobile Netze |
| Date Deposited: | 02 Jul 2024 23:13 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Jul 2024 23:13 |
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| Suche nach Titel in: | TUfind oder in Google |
Available Versions of this Item
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Snail Mail Beats Email Any Day: On Effective Operator Security Notifications in the Internet. (deposited 29 Jul 2022 13:12)
- Snail Mail Beats Email Any Day: On Effective Operator Security Notifications in the Internet. (deposited 02 Jul 2024 23:13) [Currently Displayed]
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