The Irreversible March of Technology

The ongoing advancement of technology delivers numerous benefits, with enhanced functionality, more capable devices, and new online services all being made available to users on continual basis. At the same time, however, each new advance has the potential to introduce additional risk, with the consequence that users can quickly find themselves exposed if they do not maintain adequate safeguards and awareness. This paper considers some of the security challenges facing end-users, and the extent to which these have evolved alongside changes in the underlying technologies. The discussion reveals that while some aspects of security provision have clearly changed, this does not necessarily result in a situation that actually benefits the user. Indeed, they may find themselves facing a greater burden in terms of security tasks or complexity, or alternatively being underserved by protection options that no longer match the activities they are undertaking.