Information Security Commons^™

Phishing, Irda Voli

Mathematics and Computer Science Capstones

Phishing is a cybercrime that involves a hacker identifying as a real person or institution that targets people over text message, phone calls, and emails. The hacker tries to scam the target into giving up personal information. People are targeted through text messages, phone calls, and emails. More recently in 2020 when covid became a major issue, phishing started becoming more and more popular for ways to scam. The messages became more specific, and job sites became more believable. According to article “Phishing Attacks Soar 220% During COVID-19 Peak as Cybercriminal Opportunism Intensifies”, David Warburton says:

COVID-19 continues to significantly …

Ransomware, Eleanor Mancini

Mathematics and Computer Science Capstones

This paper explores ransomware and it’s effect on organizations with the intent of uncovering the ideal way for an organization to handle an attack. It begins with a short introduction of ransomware and it’s similarities and differences to traditional crimes, such as theft. Then the paper explains the two main categories of ransomware – crypto-ransomware and locker ransomware – and how most variants are derived from these categories. It includes a description of each category and the typical ways an organization would encounter it. The paper examines the emergence of ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) and how it’s divide-and-conquer nature allows cybercriminals to …

Going Dark And Encryption, Brendan Funk

Mathematics and Computer Science Capstones

Law officers across the country and around the world are being left in the technological dust by their criminal counterparts. They have no problem obtaining evidence, however they run into issues accessing this information due to various encryption techniques being used. This phenomenon has been dubbed the “Going Dark” problem. James Comey describes the Going Dark problem as, “We have the legal authority to intercept and access communications and information pursuant to court order, but we often lack the technical ability to do so” (Comey, 2014).

The Going Dark problem is a relatively new problem facing law enforcement officers (LEOs) …

The Negative Economic Impacts Of Money Laundering In Kenya, Thailand And France, Peyton Tollaksen

Mathematics and Computer Science Capstones

Cybercrime has grown exponentially around the world due to consistently changing technology and the craftiness of cybercriminals often outpacing that of security officers. In the past three decades, cybercrime has been expedited and globally expanded due to the accumulated experience of these criminals, who take advantage of the new found black market, cryptocurrency, and other operations. According to a report published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies titled, “Economic Impact of Cybercrime,” it was found that, “close to $600 billion, nearly one percent of global GDP, is lost to cybercrime each year” (2018). Unfortunately, this number will only …

Data Poisoning: A New Threat To Artificial Intelligence, Nary Simms

Mathematics and Computer Science Capstones

Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption is rapidly being deployed in a number of fields, from banking and finance to healthcare, robotics, transportation, military, e-commerce and social networks. Grand View Research estimates that the global AI market was worth 93.5 billion in 2021 and that it will increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38.1% from 2022 to 2030. According to a 2020 MIT Sloan Management survey, 87% of multinational corporations believe that AI technology will provide a competitive edge. Artificial Intelligence relies heavily on datasets to train its models. The more data, the better it learns and predicts. However, …

Franklin Township Municipal Broadband And Wireless Network, William Galtieri

Mathematics and Computer Science Capstones

Franklin Township is a municipality in Somerset County, New Jersey covering an area of approximately 46.15 square miles and a population of 62,300 as of the 2010 Census. The town relies on a cellular provider to provide data connections for computers in municipal vehicles such as police cars, public works vehicles, fire inspection trucks, building inspectors and other departments. Additionally, the municipality pays for connections for security cameras at remote facilities and for smart garbage can monitoring throughout the town. These services are costly for the municipality and create a dependency on service providers for access to information needed by …

Privileged Access Management, Anea Cobia

Economic Crime Forensics Capstones

Security breaches are becoming a common occurrence in society today. When breaches occur, people are often left wondering how they will be affected and what steps can be taken to protect them. The passing of stricter standards and regulations has not slowed would be hackers from crafting ways to breach networks. While there are many ways that a breach can occur, the focus of this paper will be to look at the usage of credentials and privileged accounts. Specifically, the idea of privilege access management and methods for protecting credentials will be examined.

The Benefits Of Artificial Intelligence In Cybersecurity, Ricardo Calderon

Economic Crime Forensics Capstones

Cyberthreats have increased extensively during the last decade. Cybercriminals have become more sophisticated. Current security controls are not enough to defend networks from the number of highly skilled cybercriminals. Cybercriminals have learned how to evade the most sophisticated tools, such as Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDPS), and botnets are almost invisible to current tools. Fortunately, the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) may increase the detection rate of IDPS systems, and Machine Learning (ML) techniques are able to mine data to detect botnets’ sources. However, the implementation of AI may bring other risks, and cybersecurity experts need to find a …

Social Engineering In Call Centers And Ways To Reduce It, Maureen York

Economic Crime Forensics Capstones

Social engineering is the use of trickery, deception, persuasion, emotional manipulation, impersonation, and abuse of trust to gain information or access through the use of a human interface (Thompson, 2006). Social engineering relies on the human behavior in order to gain information or access. The technique of social engineering can be performed in numerous ways and has been proven to be an effective way for perpetrators to obtain valuable information.

This capstone project, I will focus on social engineering of call centers and the steps organizations can take to reduce it. For most organizations, the call centers or customer support …

Who's In And Who's Out?: What's Important In The Cyber World?, Tony M. Kelly

HON499 projects

The aim of this paper is to offer an introduction to the exploding field of cybersecurity by asking what are the most important concepts or topics that a new member of the field of cybersecurity should know. This paper explores this question from three perspectives: from the realm of business and how the cyber world is intertwined with modern commerce, including common weaknesses and recommendations, from the academic arena examining how cybersecurity is taught and how it should be taught in a classroom or laboratory environment, and lastly, from the author’s personal experience with the cyber world. Included information includes …

Analyzing Proactive Fraud Detection Software Tools And The Push For Quicker Solutions, Kerri Aiken

Economic Crime Forensics Capstones

This paper focuses on proactive fraud detection software tools and how these tools can help detect and prevent possible fraudulent schemes. In addition to relying on routine audits, companies are designing proactive methods that involve the inclusion of software tools to detect and deter instances of fraud and abuse. This paper discusses examples of companies using ACL and SAS software programs and how the software tools have positively changed their auditing systems.

Novelis Inc., an aluminum and recycling company, implemented ACL into their internal audit software system. Competitive Health Analytics (Division of Humana) implemented SAS in order to improve their …