IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/icb/wpaper/v4y2017i1280-287.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Risk and Digital Security: the perception versus reality and the cognitive biases of online protection

Author

Listed:
  • Paul MASKALL

    (University of Suffolk, Waterfront Building, 19 Neptune Quay, Ipswich IP4 1QJ)

Abstract

The feeling of security and our intrinsic perception of risk is an aspect that is both fundamental to our individuality, but also to how we make the inherent decisions necessary to further our own and others wellbeing, but security is just that, a 'feeling'. Our sense of risk is calculated by a series of trade-offs, contributed by what we associate our individual sense of value to, and what could positively or negatively affect that wellbeing, whether financially, physically or mentally. Our sense of risk however, is plagued with cognitive and emotional biases; therefore our perception is rarely ever based on the reality, meaning that as a society we are inherently bad at efficiently making meaningful trade-offs. [Schneier, 2008] With this in mind, this is where digital security and identity directly counteracts with that of our natural affinity to associate value to our more tangible assets and possessions. Almost universally, individuals and businesses alike, do not associate the appropriate level of value, therefore do not perceive the risk to the data that we store, or that of the information that we actively disseminate out about ourselves. This is also contributed by our irreverence to categorising the internet and our digital footprint as a modern and impactful socio-technical institution. One of our cognitive biases, the availability heuristic, illustrates that we assign the probability of risk of an event or threat, based on how many examples we can bring to mind. [Sunstein, 2004; Schneier, 2008]We watch in the media that cybercrime and fraud is happening constantly, but only to the larger organisations, so when we associate risk, we naturally think that it will not happen to us as an individual or smaller business, because of those biased examples that we can summon to mind. The reality is that cybercrime and fraud is one of the most pervasive threats to multiple aspects of our wellbeing but sits perfectly just outside of our cognitive reasoning of risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul MASKALL, 2017. "Risk and Digital Security: the perception versus reality and the cognitive biases of online protection," International Conference on Economic Sciences and Business Administration, Spiru Haret University, vol. 4(1), pages 280-287, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:icb:wpaper:v:4:y:2017:i:1:280-287
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://icesba.eu/RePEc/icb/wpaper/ICESBA2017_Maskall_p280-287.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Kahneman, Daniel, 2002. "Maps of Bounded Rationality," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2002-4, Nobel Prize Committee.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ling Jia & Queena K. Qian & Frits Meijer & Henk Visscher, 2020. "Stakeholders’ Risk Perception: A Perspective for Proactive Risk Management in Residential Building Energy Retrofits in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-25, April.
    2. Schilirò, Daniele & Graziano, Mario, 2011. "Scelte e razionalità nei modelli economici: un'analisi multidisciplinare [Choices and rationality in economic models: a multidisciplinary analysis]," MPRA Paper 31910, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Matteo Coronese & Davide Luzzati, 2022. "Economic impacts of natural hazards and complexity science: a critical review," LEM Papers Series 2022/13, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    4. Roger J. Jiao & Feng Zhou & Chih-Hsing Chu, 2017. "Decision theoretic modeling of affective and cognitive needs for product experience engineering: key issues and a conceptual framework," Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, Springer, vol. 28(7), pages 1755-1767, October.
    5. Santiago Burone & Martin Leites, 2021. "Self-centered and non-self-centered inequality aversion matter: Evidence from Uruguay based on an experimental survey," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 19(2), pages 265-291, June.
    6. Sandri, Serena & Schade, Christian & Mußhoff, Oliver & Odening, Martin, 2010. "Holding on for too long? An experimental study on inertia in entrepreneurs' and non-entrepreneurs' disinvestment choices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 30-44, October.
    7. Katarina Kostelic, 2020. "Guessing the Game: An Individual’s Awareness and Assessment of a Game’s Existence," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-28, March.
    8. Danijela Vuletic, 2015. "How Effective are Reminders and Frames in Incentivizing Blood Donations," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp554, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    9. Daniele SCHILIRÒ, 2013. "Bounded Rationality: Psychology, Economics And The Financial Crises," Theoretical and Practical Research in the Economic Fields, ASERS Publishing, vol. 4(1), pages 97-108.
    10. Agnès Festré & Pierre Garrouste, 2012. "The ‘Economics of Attention’: A New Avenue of Research in Cognitive Economics," GREDEG Working Papers 2012-12, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    11. Valerii Salov, 2015. "The Role of Time in Making Risky Decisions and the Function of Choice," Papers 1512.08792, arXiv.org.
    12. Stefan Schiller, 2017. "The Quest for Rationality: Chief Financial Officers’ and Accounting Master’s Students’ Perception of Economic Rationality," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(2), pages 21582440177, April.
    13. GHIURCA Camelia, 2019. "Economics As A Science Of The Artificial," Revista Economica, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 71(5), pages 39-46, December.
    14. Mario GRAZIANO & Daniele SCHILIRÒ, 2011. "Rationality And Choices In Economics: Behavioral And Evolutionary Approaches," Theoretical and Practical Research in the Economic Fields, ASERS Publishing, vol. 2(2), pages 182-195.
    15. Ronald Schettkat, 2018. "The Behavioral Economics of John Maynard Keynes," Schumpeter Discussion Papers sdp18007, Universitätsbibliothek Wuppertal, University Library.
    16. W. Kip Viscusi & Richard Zeckhauser, 2005. "The Perception and Valuation of the Risks of Climate Change: A Rational and Behavioral Blend," NBER Working Papers 11863, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Bilbao-Terol, Amelia & Arenas-Parra, Mar & Cañal-Fernández, Verónica, 2016. "A model based on Copula Theory for sustainable and social responsible investments," Revista de Contabilidad - Spanish Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 55-76.
    18. Norbert Hirschauer & Mira Lehberger & Oliver Musshoff, 2015. "Happiness and Utility in Economic Thought—Or: What Can We Learn from Happiness Research for Public Policy Analysis and Public Policy Making?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 647-674, April.
    19. Ioana Florina Coita, 2017. "Equilibrium Model Of Business Architecture Using Premises Of Agent-Based Modeling," Annals of Faculty of Economics, University of Oradea, Faculty of Economics, vol. 1(2), pages 166-176, December.
    20. Prpić, John, 2017. "Project Risk Management Incorporating Knight, Ellsberg & Kahneman," SocArXiv yqhjx, Center for Open Science.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Risk; Security; Cybercrime; Wellbeing; Trade-offs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:icb:wpaper:v:4:y:2017:i:1:280-287. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Rocsana Bucea-Manea-Tonis (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://icesba.eu .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.