Symposium on Usable Security and Privacy (USEC) 2026 Accepted Papers

View the detailed program page to learn when each paper will be presented during the upcoming event.

“I found the text to be encouraging” – Evaluating Different Password Strength Calculator Designs

Rozalina Doneva (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)), Anne Hennig (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)), Peter Mayer (University of Southern Denmark (SDU))

“I wanted to buy Robux but got scammed for 10 dollars in Bitcoin”: Emerging adults’ experiences with crypto assets as teens

Lily Klucinec (Carnegie Mellon University), Ellie Young (Carnegie Mellon University), Elijah Bouma-Sims (Carnegie Mellon University), Lorrie Faith Cranor (Carnegie Mellon University)

“Security issues should be addressed immediately regardless of who created it”: Sysadmins’ Security Vulnerability Ownership and Remediation Decisions

Tamara Bondar (Carleton University), Hala Assal (Carleton University)

“These cameras are just like the Eye of Sauron”: A Sociotechnical Threat Model for AI-Driven Smart Home Devices as Perceived by UK-Based Domestic Workers

Shijing He (King’s College London), Yaxiong Lei (University of St Andrews), Xiao Zhan (Universitat Politecnica de Valencia), Ruba Abu-Salma (King’s College London), Jose Such (INGENIO (CSIC-UPV))

Adopt a PET! An Exploration of PETs, Policy, and Practicalities for Industry in Canada

Masoumeh Shafieinejad (Vector Institute), Xi He (Vector Institute and Univesity of Waterloo), Bailey Kacsmar (Amii & University of Alberta)

Analysing Privacy Risks in Children’s Educational Apps in Australia

Sicheng Jin (University of New South Wales), Rahat Masood (University of New South Wales), Jung-Sook Lee (University of New South Wales), Hye-Young (Helen) Paik (University of New South Wales)

DuoLungo: Usability Study of Duo 2FA

Renascence Tarafder Prapty (University of California Irvine), Gene Tsudik (University of California Irvine)

From Awareness to Practice: A Survey of U.S. Users’ Privacy Perceptions in LLM Chatbots

Ece Gumusel (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Yueru Yan (Indiana University Bloomington), Ege Otenen (Indiana University Bloomington)

From Paranoia to Compliance: The Bumpy Road of System Hardening Practices on Stack Exchange

Niklas Busch (CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Germany), Philip Klostermeyer (CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Germany), Jan H. Klemmer (CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Germany), Yasemin Acar (Paderborn University, Germany), Sascha Fahl (CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Germany)

From Scam to Safety: Participatory Design of Digital Privacy and Security Tools with International Students from Global South

Sarah Tabassum (University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA), Narges Zare (University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA), Cori Faklaris(University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA)

From Underground to Mainstream Marketplaces: Measuring AI-Enabled NSFW Deepfakes on Fiverr

Mohamed Moustafa Dawoud (University of California, Santa Cruz), Alejandro Cuevas (Princeton University), Ram Sundara Raman (University of California, Santa Cruz)

More than Meets the Eye: Understanding the Effect of Individual Objects on Perceived Visual Privacy

Mete Harun Akcay (Abo Academy University), Siddarth Prakash Rao (Nokia Bell Labs), Alexandros Bakas (Nokia Bell Labs), Buse Atli (Linkoping University)

Privacy Starts with UI: Privacy Patterns and Designer Perspectives in UI/UX Practice

Anxhela Maloku (Technical University of Munich), Alexandra Klymenko (Technical University of Munich), Stephen Meisenbacher (Technical University of Munich), Florian Matthes (Technical University of Munich)

Replication: A Study on How Users (Don’t) Use Password Managers

Pithayuth Charnsethikul (University of Southern California), Anushka Fattepurkar (University of Southern California), Dipsy Desai (University of Southern California), Gale Lucas (University of Southern California), Jelena Mirkovic (University of Southern California)

U.S. Election Expert Perspectives on End-to-end Verifiable Voting Systems

Julie M. Haney (National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland), Shanee Dawkins (National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland), Sandra Spickard Prettyman (Cultural Catalyst LLC, Chicago), Mary F. Theofanos (National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland), Kristen K. Greene (National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland), Kristin L. Kelly Koskey (Cultural Catalyst LLC, Chicago), Jody L. Jacobs (National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland)

Usability Issues in Differential Privacy Libraries: A Study from a Developers’ Perspective

Ravi Mahankali (University of Bristol), Jo Hallett (University of Bristol)

User Experiences with Suspicious Emails in Virtual Reality Headsets: A Study in Realistic Settings

Filipo Sharevski (DePaul University), Jennifer Vander Loop (DePaul University), Sarah Ferguson (DePaul University), Viktorija Paneva (LMU Munich)

UsersFirst in Practice: Evaluating a User-Centric Threat Modeling Taxonomy for Privacy Notice and Choice

Alexandra Xinran Li (Carnegie Mellon University), Tian Wang (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Yu-Ju Yang (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Miguel Rivera-Lanas (Carnegie Mellon University), Debeshi Ghosh (Carnegie Mellon University), Hana Habib (Carnegie Mellon University), Lorrie Cranor (Carnegie Mellon University), Norman Sadeh (Carnegie Mellon University)

Vision: Profiling Human Attackers: Personality and Behavioral Patterns in Deceptive Multi-Stage CTF Challenges

Khalid Alasiri (School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence Arizona State University), Rakibul Hasan (School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence Arizona State University)

VR ProfiLens: User Profiling Risks in Consumer Virtual Reality Apps

Ismat Jarin (University of California, Irvine), Olivia Figueira (University of California, Irvine), Yu Duan (University of California, Irvine), Tu Le (The University of Alabama), Athina Markopoulou (University of California, Irvine)

What Are Brands Telling You About Smishing? A Cross-Industry Evaluation of Customer Guidance

Dev Vikesh Doshi (California State University San Marcos), Mehjabeen Tasnim (California State University San Marcos), Fernando Landeros (California State University San Marcos), Chinthagumpala Muni Venkatesh (California State University San Marcos), Daniel Timko (Emerging Threats Lab / Smishtank.com), Muhammad Lutfor Rahman (California State University San Marcos)

When Security Meets Usability: An Empirical Investigation of Post-Quantum Cryptography APIs

Marthin Toruan (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology), R.D.N. Shakya (University of Moratuwa), Samuel Tseitkin (ExeQuantum), Raymond K. Zhao (ExeQuantum), Nalin Arachchilage (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology)