We are very happy to announce that Yelena (Lena) Petrykina had successfully defended her Master’s thesis, “Incentivizing Users to Follow Information Security Practices”. 

Lena had developed a personal software agent,implemented as a Google Chrome extension, that “couches” the user to follow security guidelines. The agent’s effect was evaluated with a user study, showing that specific types of feedback are very effective in changing users’ behavior. Lena’s work was funded by the Blavatnik Interdisciplinary Cyber Research Center (ICRC) at Tel Aviv University.