Dr. Verena Distler

Dr. Verena Distler

Dr. Verena Distler is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Usable Security and Privacy Group at the Bundeswehr University Munich, Germany. She obtained her Ph.D. in Psychology (focus on Human-Computer Interaction) in 2021 from the University of Luxembourg, which was awarded the university’s Excellent PhD Thesis Award. Prior to her Ph.D., she completed her Master’s Degree at ENS de Lyon (France).
Dr. Distler’s research interests are situated in usable (or user-centered) privacy and security. She studies how technology’s design can influence perceptions of security and privacy risks. She is also interested in how we might facilitate better communication between security experts and non-experts. Currently, she investigates how we might improve resilience to social engineering attacks, focusing on phishing, and uses the generated insights to provide actionable design recommendations for more secure and user-friendly technologies.

Thesis

2021

Verena Distler. The Experience of Security in Human-Computer Interactions: Understanding Security Perceptions Through the Concept of User Experience. PHD Thesis, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, 2021. [Download Bibtex]

Publications

2024

	Xiaowei Chen, Margault Sacré, Gabriele Lenzini, Samuel Greiff, Anastasia Sergeeva and Verena Distler. The Effects of Group Discussion and Role-playing Training on Self-efficacy, Support-seeking, and Reporting Phishing Emails: Evidence from a Mixed-design Experiment. [Download Bibtex]
2023
	Verena Distler. The Influence of Context on Response to Spear-Phishing Attacks: An In-Situ Deception Study. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI '23. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. [Download Bibtex]
	Verena Distler, Yasmeen Abdrabou, Felix Dietz and Florian Alt. Triggering Empathy out of Malicious Intent: The Role of Empathy in Social Engineering Attacks. In Proceedings of the 2nd Empathy-Centric Design Workshop. EMPATHICH '23. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. [Download Bibtex]
	Florian Alt, Mariam Hassib and Verena Distler. Human-centered Behavioral and Physiological Security. In Proceedings of the 2023 Workshop on New Security Paradigms. NSPW '23. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. [Download Bibtex]
	Verena Distler. The Influence of Context on Response to Spear-Phishing Attacks: An In-Situ Deception Study. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI '23. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. [Download Bibtex]
	Anastasia Sergeeva, Björn Rohles, Verena Distler and Vincent Koenig. “We Need a Big Revolution in Email Advertising”: Users’ Perception of Persuasion in Permission-Based Advertising Emails. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI '23. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. [Download Bibtex]
2022
	Kerstin Bongard-Blanchy, Jean-Louis Sterckx, Arianna Rossi, Verena Distler, Salvador Rivas and Vincent Koenig. An (Un) Necessary Evil-Users'(Un) Certainty about Smartphone App Permissions and Implications for Privacy Engineering. In 2022 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS&PW). [Download Bibtex]
	Björn Rohles, Sophie Doublet, Kerstin Bongard, Verena Distler, Vincent Fourrier, Anastasia Sergeeva and Vincent Koenig. " Do we need an entire course about it?": Evaluating two years of teaching HCI in computer science. [Download Bibtex]
	Verena Distler, Tamara Gutfleisch, Carine Lallemand, Gabriele Lenzini and Vincent Koenig. Complex, but in a good way? How to represent encryption to non-experts through text and visuals–Evidence from expert co-creation and a vignette experiment. In Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 5, 2022, 100161. [Download Bibtex]
2021
	Verena Distler, Matthias Fassl, Hana Habib, Katharina Krombholz, Gabriele Lenzini, Carine Lallemand, Lorrie Faith Cranor and Vincent Koenig. A Systematic Literature Review of Empirical Methods and Risk Representation in Usable Privacy and Security Research. In ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 28, 2021, 1–50. [Download Bibtex]
	Marie-Laure Zollinger, Verena Distler, Peter B Roenne, Peter YA Ryan, Carine Lallemand and Vincent Koenig. User Experience Design for E-Voting: How mental models align with security mechanisms. [Download Bibtex]
2020
	Verena Distler, Gabriele Lenzini, Carine Lallemand and Vincent Koenig. The Framework of Security-Enhancing Friction: How UX Can Help Users Behave More Securely. In New Security Paradigms Workshop (NSPW). [Download Bibtex]
	Verena Distler, Carine Lallemand and Vincent Koenig. How acceptable is this? How user experience factors can broaden our understanding of the acceptance of privacy trade-offs. In Computers in Human Behavior, 106, 2020, 106227. [Download Bibtex]
	Verena Distler, Carine Lallemand and Vincent Koenig. Making Encryption Feel Secure: Investigating how Descriptions of Encryption Impact Perceived Security. [Download Bibtex]
2019
	Verena Distler, Marie-Laure Zollinger, Carine Lallemand, Peter Roenne, Peter Ryan and Vincent Koenig. Security–Visible, Yet Unseen? How Displaying Security Mechanisms Impacts User Experience and Perceived Security. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI2019). [Download Bibtex]
2018
	Verena Distler, Carine Lallemand and Thierry Bellet. Acceptability and Acceptance of Autonomous Mobility on Demand: the Impact of an Immersive Experience. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. [Download Bibtex]