Exploring the Adoption of Physical Security Controls in Smartphones

The proliferation of smartphones has changed our life due to the enhanced connectivity, increased storage capacity and innovative functionality they offer. Their increased popularity has drawn the attention of attackers, thus, nowadays their users are exposed to many security and privacy threats. The fact that smartphones store significant data (e.g. personal, business, government, etc.) in combination with their mobility, increase the impact of unauthorized physical access to smartphones. However, past research has revealed that this is not clearly understood by smartphone users, as they disregard the available security controls. In this context, this paper explores the attitudes and perceptions towards security controls that protect smartphone user’s data from unauthorized physical access. We conducted a survey to measure their adoption and the reasons behind users’ selections. Our results, suggest that nowadays users are more concerned about their physical security, but still reveal that a considerable portion of our sample is prone to unauthorized physical access.