Experimenting At Scale With Google Chrome's SSL Warning

Web browsers shown HTTPS authentication warnings (i.e., SSL warnings) when the integrity and confidentiality of users' interactions with websites are at risk. Our goal in this work is to decrease the number of users who click through the Google Chrome SSL warning. Prior research showed that the Mozilla Firefox SSL warning has a much lower click-through rate (CTR) than Chrome. We investigate several factors that could be responsible: the use of imagery, extra steps before the user can proceed, and style choices. To test these factors, we ran six experimental SSL warnings in Google Chrome 29 and measured 130,754 impressions.

• Human-Computer Interaction and Visualization

• Security, Privacy and Abuse Prevention