From Self-Help to Institutional Activation: Bridging the Advice Gap in Cybersecurity Help-Seeking

Abstract

Consumers increasingly face ambiguous cybersecurity incidents that demand rapid decision-making under uncertainty. Despite the availability of formal and publicly supported infrastructure, these resources remain underutilized. We conceptualize this institutional advice gap as a staged escalation process across competing help ecologies, ranging from autonomous coping and informal support to commercial services and institutional contact. Drawing on a vignette-based survey among German internet users (N = 176), we identify an escalation gradient: participants favor autonomous coping, while institutional contact is least likely. Multivariate analyses reveal stage-specific determinants, with perceived accessibility emerging as the most consistent predictor of institutional contact. We propose institutional usability as a lens for understanding how discoverability, procedural clarity, and interactional accessibility shape whether users escalate incidents to institutional support. We contribute to usable security research by showing that institutional help-seeking is not primarily a matter of trust, but a staged escalation process in which perceived accessibility gates the transition into formal support.