Users Ignoring Security Warnings

The cluster discusses how non-technical users habitually click through security warnings, popups, and alerts without reading them, leading to debates on warning fatigue, ineffectiveness of such prompts, and risks of false security senses.

➡️ Stable 0.6x Security
3,201
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#5100
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Keywords

ACCOUNT e.g OK UI GIVE DNS UX SiteAdvisor YES microsoft.com users warnings security warning savvy click ignore tech savvy user popup

Sample Comments

tombone12 May 24, 2018 View on HN

That's a novel claim, usually security experts are always complaining that people just click "accept" and ignore all the warnings of broken crypto and all that. How foolish they will feel when they realize that all that was missing was putting "GDPR" in the popup and people will automatically stop ignoring warnings!

mr_toad Jan 17, 2021 View on HN

Users would start to ignore the warnings and proceed anyway, or even turn safe browsing off.

xoail Jun 2, 2020 View on HN

User are generally not tech savy to bypass Smartscreen warning by themselves.

lolinder Aug 29, 2024 View on HN

You've clearly never worked in tech support. People who are likely to go through the steps that OP described aren't going to read the warning.

pixl97 Sep 14, 2023 View on HN

Honestly with most users the opposite seems to happen. They get warning fatigue and start clicking YES on everything

AnIdiotOnTheNet Dec 21, 2017 View on HN

What I disagree with is the characterization of the user as someone who a) cares[1], and b) doesn't realize they're clicking through something they don't understand. After all, they do it all the time on EULAs and when they ignore their "check engine" light.Could the message explain the problem better? Maybe, but when you characterize the user the way the parent did, you're not going to stop there, you're going to make them jump through all sorts of hoops or

ootachi Aug 19, 2011 View on HN

That's a bad idea. People will always click through warning and permission screens; increasing the complexity of warning screens simply increases the likelihood that people will click through it without reading it.

Arainach Oct 15, 2025 View on HN

Users can't be trusted. They don't read. You can put a popup that flashes in all caps saying "THIS WILL GIVE ACCESS TO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT" and users will blindly click OK to get to whatever they think they want, be that an Instagram feed, a game, or whatever.https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030901-00/?p=42...It was tru

adamsmith143 Mar 31, 2022 View on HN

The smartest system still can't protect the dumbest users from themselves. Not a bug imo

threeseed Dec 30, 2024 View on HN

We have decades of experience going back to Vista that this does not work.Users trust companies like Apple, Google etc not to place them in harm's way.And so when prompts like this are shown they will quite happily approve without even reading the words.