Understanding the Human Rootkit:
Behavioural Insights that Helped an Engineer

​Presenter: Tracy Tam
​Schedule: Saturday at 11:20 AM · 30 min · Big Room​

Abstract
User behaviour sometimes confound us, as technical people, the same way a stubborn rootkit does. In this talk, I want to share some human behaviour science theories and practices that I found helpful in my research, teaching and engineering journeys.

• Action Intentions – How invisible context can be (de)motivating users.
  
• Decision Making – Brain tricks that can subvert even the best intentions.
  
• Cognitive Load – What happens when learning become over-ambitious.

This talk includes tips in working with these heuristics in cyber-security, using practical examples and best practices from education, community harm prevention and cyber-security.
​
Speaker Bio:
Tracy is a doctoral candidate at RMIT University. She studied engineering at Monash University, before working for a decade as an engineer within the IT industry. Her research has been cited by over 100 scientific articles and had input into government policy. Her research interests include small business cyber-security, cyber-security human factors and security risk management.