Security implications of structure

5 Conclusion

Human involvement in any system is unavoidable, and will critically influence the structure and security of the system, making it unpredictable and therefore hard to study. To understand how these socio-technical systems behave, we need to better understand the behaviour of people. This will lead to a better design of security measures in term of usability and effectiveness. As a result, the risk of human components bypassing or rendering the security measures useless through their careless actions could be reduced.

Another way to improve the security of computer-based systems is by making the human components aware of the importance of sound security practices and the havoc that security breaches could bring. It is very common — if not mandatory — for new employees to undergo safety training or induction. This could be extended to include security induction, where new employees are made aware of the organisation’s security policies.