Trust Transitions
How trust moves between applications, identities and browser contexts — and where it changes hands unnoticed.
SENTYRA RESEARCH
VIGIL Gate
Phishing rarely breaks workflows anymore — it rides them. VIGIL Gate researches how the browser can make trust transitions visible at the moment they happen.
Research Problem
Trust is often inherited rather than evaluated.
Most phishing no longer looks broken. Attacks arrive inside legitimate workflows: a shared document, a calendar invite, a login page appearing exactly where you would expect one. Each step borrows credibility from the step before it.
The technical controls are usually still in place — it is the user's attention that has moved on. VIGIL Gate investigates whether the browser can bring that attention back, at exactly the right moment.
Workflow-Conditioned Trust
Trust follows the workflow.
Email → Collaboration Platform → Document → Identity Provider → External Service
People trust a destination because of the path that led them there — not because they verified where they actually ended up.
VIGIL Gate studies that chain, and where in it a small, well-timed check does the most good.
Research Themes
Areas currently being explored.
Micro-Friction
A deliberate speed bump: just enough to make someone look, not enough to train them to click through.
Workflow Context
How the last three clicks shape the next one.
Identity Fabric
Whether workflow context can serve as an extra signal for identity systems.
Browser Extension
Available for Microsoft Edge.
The VIGIL Gate extension is the field instrument of this research: a prototype that makes trust transitions visible while you browse. Expect an experiment, not a finished product.
Research Status
Active research initiative.
VIGIL Gate is active research. The extension gathers no data about its users — the insight comes from designing, testing and refining the verification moments themselves.
Findings and publications will appear here as the work matures.
Research Resources
Public Research Repository
Threat models, human-factors analysis, privacy principles and project documentation — all public.
Privacy by Design
Local-first by design.
These are design constraints, not afterthoughts.
- No telemetry
- No analytics
- No browsing history uploads
- No workflow activity uploads
- No sale or sharing of data
- Local processing where possible