Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

On Irs-Assisted Covert Communication With A Friendly Uav, Xiaobei Xu, Linzi Hu, Sha Wei, Yuwen Qian, Shihao Yan, Feng Shu, Jun Li

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Driven by the rapidly growing demand for information security, covert wireless communication has become an essential technology and attracted tremendous attention. However, traditional wireless covert communication is continuously exposing the inherent limitations, creating challenges around deployment in environments with a large number of obstacles, such as cities with high-rise buildings. In this paper, we propose an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted covert communication system (CCS) for communicating with a friendly unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in which the UAV generates artificial noise (AN) to interfere with monitoring. Furthermore, we model the power of AN emitted by the UAV using an uncertainty model, …

Cybersecurity Continuity Risks: Lessons Learned From The Covid-19 Pandemic, Tyler Fezzey, John H. Batchelor, Gerald F. Burch, Randall Reid

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

The scope and breadth of the COVID-19 pandemic were unprecedented. This is especially true for business continuity and the related area of cybersecurity. Historically, business continuity and cybersecurity are viewed and researched as separate fields. This paper synthesizes the two disciplines as one, thus pointing out the need to address both topics simultaneously. This study identifies blind spots experienced by businesses as they navigated through the difficult time of the pandemic by using data collected during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. One major shortcoming was that most continuity and cybersecurity plans focused on single-axis threats. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted …

A Study Of The Effect Of Types Of Organizational Culture On Information Security Procedural Countermeasures, Sheri James

CCE Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the impact of specific organizational cultures on information security procedural countermeasures (ISPC). With increasing security incidents and data breaches, organizations acknowledge that people are their greatest asset as well as a vulnerability. Previous research into information security procedural controls has centered on behavioral, cognitive, and social theories; some literature incorporates general notions of organization culture yet there is still an absence in socio-organizational studies dedicated to elucidating how information security policy (ISP) compliance can be augmented by implementing comprehensive security education, training, and awareness (SETA) programs focusing on education, training, and awareness initiatives.

A theoretical model was …

Ict Security Tools And Techniques Among Higher Education Institutions: A Critical Review, Miko Nuñez, Xavier-Lewis Palmer, Lucas Potter, Chris Jordan Aliac, Lemuel Clark Velasco

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are increasingly relying on digital technologies for classroom and organizational management, but this puts them at higher risk for information and communication (ICT security attacks. Recent studies show that HEIs have experienced more security breaches in ICT security composed of both cybersecurity an information security. A literature review was conducted to identify common ICT security practices in HEIs over the last decade. 11 journal articles were profiled and analyzed, revealing threats to HEIs’ security and protective measures in terms of organizational security, technological security, physical security, and standards and frameworks. Security tools and techniques were grouped …

Perceptions And Knowledge Of Information Security Policy Compliance In Organizational Personnel, Jesus M. Mosqueda

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

All internet connected organizations are becoming increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks due to information security policy noncompliance of personnel. The problem is important to information technology (IT) firms, organizations with IT integration, and any consumer who has shared personal information online, because noncompliance is the single greatest threat to cybersecurity, which leads to expensive breaches that put private information in danger. Grounded in the protection motivation theory, the purpose of this quantitative study was to use multiple regression analysis to examine the relationship between perceived importance, organizational compliance, management involvement, seeking guidance, and rate of cybersecurity attack. The research question for …

Analyzing Small Business Strategies To Prevent External Cybersecurity Threats, Dr. Kevin E. Moore

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Some small businesses’ cybersecurity analysts lack strategies to prevent their organizations from compromising personally identifiable information (PII) via external cybersecurity threats. Small business leaders are concerned, as they are the most targeted critical infrastructures in the United States and are a vital part of the economic system as data breaches threaten the viability of these organizations. Grounded in routine activity theory, the purpose of this pragmatic qualitative inquiry was to explore strategies small business organizations utilize to prevent external cybersecurity threats. The participants were nine cybersecurity analysts who utilized strategies to defend small businesses from external threats. Data were collected …

Analyzing Small Business Strategies To Prevent External Cybersecurity Threats, Dr. Kevin E. Moore

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Some small businesses’ cybersecurity analysts lack strategies to prevent their organizations from compromising personally identifiable information (PII) via external cybersecurity threats. Small business leaders are concerned, as they are the most targeted critical infrastructures in the United States and are a vital part of the economic system as data breaches threaten the viability of these organizations. Grounded in routine activity theory, the purpose of this pragmatic qualitative inquiry was to explore strategies small business organizations utilize to prevent external cybersecurity threats. The participants were nine cybersecurity analysts who utilized strategies to defend small businesses from external threats. Data were collected …

Perceptions And Knowledge Of Information Security Policy Compliance In Organizational Personnel, Jesus M. Mosqueda

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

All internet connected organizations are becoming increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks due to information security policy noncompliance of personnel. The problem is important to information technology (IT) firms, organizations with IT integration, and any consumer who has shared personal information online, because noncompliance is the single greatest threat to cybersecurity, which leads to expensive breaches that put private information in danger. Grounded in the protection motivation theory, the purpose of this quantitative study was to use multiple regression analysis to examine the relationship between perceived importance, organizational compliance, management involvement, seeking guidance, and rate of cybersecurity attack. The research question for …

A Different Way To Penetrate Nba Defenses, Trey Trucksis

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project proposal will document the design, configuration, and penetration testing of a network consisting of three routers (labeled as Lakers, Celtics, Cavaliers), one switch (labeled as NBA), and three end devices (labeled as Kali, Windows 10, and Ubuntu) each connected to one of three routers present on the network. Each router will be attached to a different subnet on the network. The network will be secured using encrypted passwords on the router interfaces, OSPF MD5 authentication between the routers, port security on the switch, as well as Access Control Lists to to control the privileges of each subnetwork accordingly. …

Principles Of Information Security, Alison Hedrick

KSU Distinguished Course Repository

An introduction to the various technical and administrative aspects of Information Security and Assurance. This course provides the foundation for understanding the key issues associated with protecting information assets, determining the levels of protection and response to security incidents, and designing a consistent, reasonable information security system, with appropriate intrusion detection and reporting features.

Demonstration Of Cyberattacks And Mitigation Of Vulnerabilities In A Webserver Interface For A Cybersecure Power Router, Benjamin Allen

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Cyberattacks are a threat to critical infrastructure, which must be secured against them to ensure continued operation. A defense-in-depth approach is necessary to secure all layers of a smart-grid system and contain the impact of any exploited vulnerabilities. In this undergraduate thesis a webserver interface for smart-grid devices communicating over Modbus TCP was developed and exposed to SQL Injection attacks and Cross-Site Scripting attacks. Analysis was performed on Supply-Chain attacks and a mitigation developed for attacks stemming from compromised Content Delivery Networks. All attempted attacks were unable to exploit vulnerabilities in the webserver due to its use of input sanitization …

Information Systems Security Countermeasures: An Assessment Of Older Workers In Indonesian Small And Medium-Sized Businesses, Hari Samudra Roosman

CCE Theses and Dissertations

Information Systems (IS) misuse can result in cyberattacks such as denial-of-service, phishing, malware, and business email compromise. The study of factors that contribute to the misuse of IS resources is well-documented and empirical research has supported the value of approaches that can be used to deter IS misuse among employees; however, age and cultural nuances exist. Research focusing on older workers and how they can help to deter IS misuse among employees and support cybersecurity countermeasures within developing countries is in its nascent stages. The goal of this study was two-fold. The first goal was to assess what older workers …

Precursors Of Email Response To Cybersecurity Scenarios: Factor Exploration And Scale Development, Miguel A. Toro-Jarrin, Pilar Pazos-Lago, Miguel Padilla

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

In the last decade, information security research has further expanded to include human factors as key elements of the organization's cybersecurity infrastructure. Numerous factors from several theories have been explored to explain and predict the multitude of information security-related behaviors in organizations. Lately, there has been a call for the study of specific cybersecurity behaviors in contextualized scenarios that reflect specific and realistic situations of a potential cyber-attack. This paper focuses on precursors of email response in situations that can be the origin of cybersecurity incidents in organizations (i.e., phishing attacks, ransomware, etc.). This study explores participants' intentions to follow …

The Effects Of Antecedents And Mediating Factors On Cybersecurity Protection Behavior, Ling Li, Li Xu, Wu He

Information Technology & Decision Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper identifies opportunities for potential theoretical and practical improvements in employees' awareness of cybersecurity and their motivational behavior to protect themselves and their organizations from cyberattacks using the protection motivation theory. In addition, it contributes to the literature by examining additional variables and mediators besides the core constructs of the Protection Motivation Model (PMT). This article uses empirical data and structural equation modeling to test the antecedents and mediators of employees' cybersecurity motivational behavior. The study offers theoretical and pragmatic guidance for cybersecurity programs. First, the model developed in this study can partially explain how people may change their …

Data Fusion For Trust Evaluation, Zheng Yan, Qinghua Zheng, Laurence T. Yang, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Trust evaluation is a process to quantify trust by analyzing the data related to the factors that affect trust. It has been widely applied in many fields to facilitate decision making, system entity collaboration and security establishment. For example, in social networking, trust evaluation helps users make a social decision, reduce the risk of social interactions, and ensure the quality of a social networking environment. In digital communications, trust evaluation can be applied to detect malicious nodes, filter unwanted traffic and improve communication security. In e-commerce and cloud services, trust evaluation helps users selecting an appropriate product or service from …

Enterprise Environment Modeling For Penetration Testing On The Openstack Virtualization Platform, Vincent Karovic Jr., Jakub Bartalos, Vincent Karovic, Michal Gregus

Journal of Global Business Insights

The article presents the design of a model environment for penetration testing of an organization using virtualization. The need for this model was based on the constantly increasing requirements for the security of information systems, both in legal terms and in accordance with international security standards. The model was created based on a specific team from the unnamed company. The virtual working environment offered the same functions as the physical environment. The virtual working environment was created in OpenStack and tested with a Linux distribution Kali Linux. We demonstrated that the virtual environment is functional and its security testable. Virtualizing …

An Economical Method For Securely Disintegrating Solid-State Drives Using Blenders, Brandon J. Hopkins Phd, Kevin A. Riggle

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Pulverizing solid-state drives (SSDs) down to particles no larger than 2 mm is required by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) to ensure the highest level of data security, but commercial disintegrators that achieve this standard are large, heavy, costly, and often difficult to access globally. Here, we present a portable, inexpensive, and accessible method of pulverizing SSDs using a household blender and other readily available materials. We verify this approach by pulverizing SSDs with a variety of household blenders for fixed periods of time and sieve the resulting powder to ensure appropriate particle size. Among the 6 household …

An Empirical Examination Of The Impact Of Organizational Injustice And Negative Affect On Attitude And Non-Compliance With Information Security Policy, Celestine Kemah

CCE Theses and Dissertations

Employees’ non-compliance with Information Security (IS) policies is an important socio-organizational issue that represents a serious threat to the effective management of information security programs in organizations. Prior studies have demonstrated that information security policy (ISP) violation in the workplace is a common significant problem in organizations. Some of these studies have earmarked the importance of this problem by drawing upon cognitive processes to explain compliance with information security policies, while others have focused solely on factors related to non-compliance behavior, one of which is affect. Despite the findings from these studies, there is a dearth of extant literature that …

Examination Of Corporate Investments In Privacy: An Event Study, Joseph Michael Squillace

CCE Theses and Dissertations

The primary objective of any corporate entity is generating as much wealth as possible. Investing financially in technology domains has historically been a successful strategy for generating increased corporate and shareholder wealth. However, investments in Information Technology (IT), Information Systems (IS) and Information Security (InfoSec) to specifically generate increased wealth must be implemented carefully.

Shareholders reacting to corporate investments perceive financial value from individual investments. The investment’s perceived value is then reflected in the corporation’s updated stock market value. IS, IT, and InfoSec investments perceived to possess positive financial value, indicating strong potential for increased wealth, are rewarded by shareholders …

An Empirical Assessment Of Users' Information Security Protection Behavior Towards Social Engineering Breaches, Nisha Jatin Patel

CCE Theses and Dissertations

User behavior is one of the most significant information security risks. Information Security is all about being aware of who and what to trust and behaving accordingly. Due to technology becoming an integral part of nearly everything in people's daily lives, the organization's need for protection from security threats has continuously increased. Social engineering is the act of tricking a user into revealing information or taking action. One of the riskiest aspects of social engineering is that it depends mainly upon user errors and is not necessarily a technology shortcoming. User behavior should be one of the first apprehensions when …

Strategies For Implementing Internet Of Things Devices In Manufacturing Environments, Todd Efrain Hernandez

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been exploited as a threat vector for cyberattacks in manufacturing environments. Manufacturing industry leaders are concerned with cyberattacks because of the associated costs of damages and lost production for their organizations. Grounded in the general systems theory, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies electrical controls engineers use to implement secure IoT devices in manufacturing environments. The study participants were eight electrical controls engineers working in three separate manufacturing facilities located in the Midwest region of the United States. The data were collected by semistructured interviews and 15 organizational documents. …

An Empirical Examination Of The Computer Security Behaviors Of Telecommuters Working With Confidential Data Through Leveraging The Factors From Fear Appeals Model (Fam), Titus Dohnfon Fofung

CCE Theses and Dissertations

Computer users’ security compliance behaviors can be better understood by devising an experimental study to examine how fear appeals might impact users’ security behavior. Telecommuter security behavior has become very relevant in information systems (IS) research with the growing number of individuals working from home. The increasing dependence on telecommuting to enhance the viability and convenience has created an urgency with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic to examine the behavior of users working at home across a corporate network. The home networks are usually not as secure as those in corporate settings. There is seldom a firewall setting and …

Establishing Blockchain-Related Security Controls, Maitha Ali Mohammed Hamad Al Ketbi

Theses

Blockchain technology is a secure and relatively new technology of distributed digital ledgers which is based on interlinked blocks of transactions. There is a rapid growth in the adoption of the blockchain technology in different solutions and applications and within different industries throughout the world, such as but not limited to, finance, supply chain, digital identity, energy, healthcare, real estate and government. Blockchain technology has great benefits such as decentralization, transparency, immutability and automation. Like any other emerging technology, the blockchain technology has also several risks and threats associated with its expected benefits which in turns could have a negative …

Compound Effects Of Clock And Voltage Based Power Side-Channel Countermeasures, Jacqueline Lagasse

Masters Theses

The power side-channel attack, which allows an attacker to derive secret information from power traces, continues to be a major vulnerability in many critical systems. Numerous countermeasures have been proposed since its discovery as a serious vulnerability, including both hardware and software implementations. Each countermeasure has its own drawback, with some of the highly effective countermeasures incurring large overhead in area and power. In addition, many countermeasures are quite invasive to the design process, requiring modification of the design and therefore additional validation and testing to ensure its accuracy. Less invasive countermeasures that do not require directly modifying the system …

A Comprehensive Security Framework For Securing Sensors In Smart Devices And Applications, Amit Kumar Sikder

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This doctoral dissertation introduces novel security frameworks to detect sensor-based threats on smart devices and applications in smart settings such as smart home, smart office, etc. First, we present a formal taxonomy and in-depth impact analysis of existing sensor-based threats to smart devices and applications based on attack characteristics, targeted components, and capabilities. Then, we design a novel context-aware intrusion detection system, 6thSense, to detect sensor-based threats in standalone smart devices (e.g., smartphone, smart watch, etc.). 6thSense considers user activity-sensor co-dependence in standalone smart devices to learn the ongoing user activity contexts and builds a context-aware model to distinguish malicious …

Does Reputational Sanctions Deter Negligence In Information Security Management? A Field Quasi-Experiment, Qian Tang, Andrew B. Whinston

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Security negligence, a major cause of data breaches, occurs when an organization’s information technology management fails to adequately address security vulnerabilities. By conducting a field quasi-experiment using outgoing spam as a focal security issue, this study investigates the effectiveness of reputational sanctions in reducing security negligence in a global context. In the quasi-experiment, a reputational sanction mechanism based on outgoing spam was established for four countries, and for each country, reputational sanctions were imposed on the 10 organizations with the largest outgoing spam volumes—that is, these organizations were listed publicly. We find that because of our reputational sanction mechanism, organizations …

Sns Use, Risk, And Executive Behavior, Andrew Green

CCE Theses and Dissertations

Andrew Green April 2020 Personal social networking sites (SNS) are popular outlets for people to share information about themselves, their family and friends, and their personal and professional lives. On the surface, the information shared may seem to be innocuous or nonthreatening. However, prior studies have shown that cybercriminals can take information shared via personal SNS and use it to conduct attacks against organizations. Organization executives are of particular interest to cybercriminals because they have access to sensitive data, and they also have the ability to command actions from their subordinates. The purpose of this study was to explore what …

The Influence Of Cognitive Factors And Personality Traits On Mobile Device User's Information Security Behavior, Nils Lau

CCE Theses and Dissertations

As individuals have become more dependent on mobile devices to communicate, to seek information, and to conduct business, their susceptibility to various threats to information security has also increased. Research has consistently shown that a user’s intention is a significant antecedent of information security behavior. Although research on user’s intention has expanded in the last few years, not enough is known about how cognitive factors and personality traits impact the adoption and use of mobile device security technologies.

The purpose of this research was to empirically investigate the influence of cognitive factors and personality traits on mobile device user’s intention …

Cloud Workload Allocation Approaches For Quality Of Service Guarantee And Cybersecurity Risk Management, Soamar Homsi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It has become a dominant trend in industry to adopt cloud computing --thanks to its unique advantages in flexibility, scalability, elasticity and cost efficiency -- for providing online cloud services over the Internet using large-scale data centers. In the meantime, the relentless increase in demand for affordable and high-quality cloud-based services, for individuals and businesses, has led to tremendously high power consumption and operating expense and thus has posed pressing challenges on cloud service providers in finding efficient resource allocation policies.

Allowing several services or Virtual Machines (VMs) to commonly share the cloud's infrastructure enables cloud providers to optimize resource …

Implications Of Eu-Gdpr In Low-Grade Social, Activist And Ngo Settings, Lars Magnusson, Sarfraz Iqbal

International Journal of Business and Technology

Social support services are becoming popular among the citizens of every country and every age. Though, social support services easily accessible on mobile phones are used in different contexts, ranging from extending your presence and connectivity to friends, family and colleagues to using social media services for being a social activist seeking to help individuals confined in miserable situations such as homeless community, drug addicts or even revolutionists fighting against dictatorships etc. However, a very recent development in the European Parliament’s law (2016/679) on the processing and free movement of personal data in terms of EU-GDPR (General data protection rules) …