Exploring the impact of tailored game content on ethical decision-making competence in cybersecurity

Highly secure cybersecurity systems require improved solutions to both technological and human factors particularly ethical priorities influencing vulnerability. Specifically, neglecting the impact of ethical decision-making in human factors can lead to undesired and unethical experiences for end-users. Raising ethical awareness via serious games can enable users, to be conscious of their judgments in cybersecurity contexts. To further improve ethical awareness effectively and target the right category of ethical training, we designed a tailored serious game to sensitise players to five cybersecurity ethical principles (beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, autonomy, and explicability). The game grounds the players with three tailored cybersecurity scenarios based on real-world cybersecurity dilemmas along with training on the five ethical principles. The analysis results show players’ competence in recognising the relevant ethical principles has significantly improved after playing the game, however further research is warranted to identify the sign of regression we observed after immediate improvements.