IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July/August 2022 - 79

Figure 1. The human-centric IoT cybersecurity
approach.
although other research streams have acknowledged
that humans are the weakest link in the
cybersecurity chain.3 The role the users play in
protecting their information, the effect of cyberattacks
on human behavior and performance,
and which human-factors are important in a consumer
IoT scenario are some of the lesser-known
aspects that will be discussed in this article.
The concept of human-centric cybersecurity
is complicated and difficult to define due to the
inherent relationships between humans and
technology. Trust between humans and technology
is a very important phenomenon in such scenarios:
an aspect that has been covered by some
extant CE research. Khan et al. 4 have proposed
a model on how to improve the consumer's trust
in IoT. Similarly, Onose5
Figure 2. Linear Waterfall Model illustrating the
human-aspect of IoT Cybersecurity Paradigm.
into the privacy mindset of the consumers, and
how regulators respond to the needs in a datacentric
world. Although these works highlight
the presence and importance of the " human "
entity, yet such a human-centric focus is largely
underrepresented in the CE domain. Apart
from using technological solutions, exploring
and solving the human-centric vulnerabilities by
focusing on human awareness, behavior, and
motivations is an important aspect as shown in
Figure 1.
THE HUMAN-CENTERED APPROACH
FOR CYBERSECURITY
Generally, for any cybersecurity scenario in
try providing insights
Table 1. Five dimensions of cybersecurity in consumer
IoT context.
Dimension Description
Goal
What is the purpose and goal of the
cyberattack?
What are the attackers trying to achieve?
Source
Who are responsible for the
cyberattack and what are the type of
the attackers?
Who are the attackers working for (any
country/company/organization/alone)?
Target
Attack
vector
Impact
Who are the targets of the cyberattack
and what are the attackers trying to
impact?
What methods are being used by the
attacker to target and what tools are
used?
What is being exploited?
What effect does the cyberattacks have
on the IoT systems?
the consumer IoT context there are five distinct
dimensions: goal, source, target, attack vector,
and impact. A brief description of each dimension
is outlined in Table 1. As evident, for each
dimension the focus is mostly technological,
with less stress on the human-factors that is
troublesome because many times the goal of
cyberattacks are to negatively affect an individual
(or organizational) human behavior, decision
making, and performance. For understanding the
human-angle in the 5-D cybersecurity paradigm,
we introduce a linear waterfall model in Figure 2.
This three-stage model is based on three higher
order constructs (Oppositional, Operational,
and Outcome), each one having specific properties.
Oppositional construct encompasses information
about the source and the goal. Source of
an attack refers to the attacker's profile, affiliation,
classification (e.g., spies, vandals, hackers,
etc.), or the level of maliciousness.6
Goal refers to the benefits like financial
or political gains, or damage caused to the
computer/network systems and information operations.
These two dimensions are considered
July/August 2022
79
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