Web systems have become an integral part in daily life of billions of people. Social is a key characteristic today’s web projects need to feature in order to be successful in the social age. To benefit from an improved user experience, individual persons are continually invited to reveal more and more personal data to web systems. With a rising severity of attacks on web systems, it is evident that their security is inadequate for the amount of accumulated personal data. Numerous threat reports indicate that social media has become a top-ranking attack target, with climbing impacts, with ramifications beyond single individuals and with a booming black market to trade leaked personal data. To enhance information security in managing personal data by web systems for the mutual benefit of individual persons, companies and governments, this dissertation proposes a solution architecture and three research contributions. While the solution architecture establishes the foundation for a more secure management of personal data by web systems, the research contributions represent complementary components for protecting personal data against unwanted data disclosure, tampering and use without the actual data owner’s intent or knowledge. Not only do these components enable seamless integration and combination, but they also contribute to assure quality and maintainability. The dissertation concludes with discussing evaluation results and providing an outlook towards future work.

Web systems have become an integral part in daily life of billions of people. Social is a key characteristic today’s web projects need to feature in order to be successful in the social age. To benefit from an improved user experience, individual persons are continually invited to reveal more and more personal data to web systems. With a rising severity of attacks on web systems, it is evident that their security is inadequate for the amount of accumulated personal data. Numerous threat reports indicate that social media has become a top-ranking attack target, with climbing impacts, with ramifications beyond single individuals and with a booming black market to trade leaked personal data. To enhance information security in managing personal data by web systems for the mutual benefit of individual persons, companies and governments, this dissertation proposes a solution architecture and three research contributions. While the solution architecture establishes the foundation for a more secure management of personal data by web systems, the research contributions represent complementary components for protecting personal data against unwanted data disclosure, tampering and use without the actual data owner’s intent or knowledge. Not only do these components enable seamless integration and combination, but they also contribute to assure quality and maintainability. The dissertation concludes with discussing evaluation results and providing an outlook towards future work.