POMEGA: Security game for building security awareness

Abstract

© 2018 IEEE. With the growth of technology and the accessibility to the Internet in the recent decades, people are now connected across countries. In contrast, it also introduces much vulnerability that can compromise people's well-being. Thus, the user security awareness becomes important when using the Internet. However, most users tend to overlook the importance of it. Thus, in this research, we would like to develop an alternative and joyful way to educate and encourage people to learn more about the security awareness. We develop a 2D game named Pomega, which is a security game for building security awareness and developed by Unity program. The game provides multi-user login system and supports both Thai and English. There are five security awareness topics provided in Pomega, which are password, phishing, social network, mobile security, and physical security. To encourage users to complete the game, users will obtain a Pomega certificate at the end of the game. There are also a certificate provided for each topic, when the user completes each topic. User data, including score and progress, will be stored in our online database server and shown on the hall-of-fame page that displays other users' progress. We evaluated our Pomega game with three groups of users. The evaluation results indicate that all users can gain the posttest scores more than the pretest scores; and most of them satisfied the game story and interface.