Computer Sciences Commons^™

All Quiet On The Digital Front: The Unseen Psychological Impacts On Cybersecurity First Responders, Tammie R. Hollis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Driven by the increasing frequency of cyberattacks and the existing talent gap between industry needs and skilled professionals, this research study focused on the crucial human element in the domain of cybersecurity incident response. The objective of this dissertation was to offer a meaningful exploration of the lived experiences encountered by cybersecurity incident responders and an assessment of the subsequent impacts on their well-being. Additionally, this study sought to draw comparisons between the experiences of cybersecurity incident responders and their counterparts in traditional emergency response roles. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a cohort of 22 individuals with first-hand experience working …

Big Data Analytics For Healthcare Social Media: New Algorithms And Insights, Negar Maleki

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the last two decades, there has been a rapid evolution in information and communication technology, including the emergence of social media. Social media has a significant impact on various fields such as politics, business, culture, education, careers, innovation, and especially healthcare. This influence is not a new phenomenon since a survey from ten years ago showed that up to 78\% of American adults used the internet to look for health-related information for themselves or someone else. With the shift towards on-demand services in society, healthcare is also affected by this trend. Instead of waiting for weeks or months to …

Human Vs Machine: Hyper-Realistic Avatars And Their Efficacy As A Communication Channel, Jill S. Schiefelbein

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Hyper-realistic avatars (HRAs), a form of synthetic media, are custom-created digital embodiments of a human, created by capturing and combining that person’s video and vocal likeness. This is the first known study of the efficacy of videos delivered by hyper-realistic avatars as a communication channel in comparison to videos delivered by their human counterparts. An experiment testing how information retention, engagement, and trust vary between viewers of videos delivered by a real human, videos delivered by the HRA representing that same human, and videos delivered by the HRA that discloses to viewers that it is a hyper-realistic avatar is presented. …

Web 2 Vs. Web 3 Paths To The Metaverse: Who Is Leading? Who Should Lead?, Le Kuai, Mary Lacity, Jeffrey K. Mullins

Information Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

Our research investigates two questions: Who is leading the metaverse? Who should lead? The questions are important because metaverse will have significant consequences for individuals, businesses, and society. We examined the current leaders of metaverse on two evolutionary paths, namely Web 2 and Web 3. Based on regulatory reports, corporate press releases, and patents, we found that only a handful of Web 2 companies are “all-in” on metaverse, and at least one of these enterprises, Meta, is on track to end up as a dominant platform provider. Based on market capitalization, user activity, and patents, only a handful of Web …

Novus Ex Machina: Realise Your Organisation’S Creative Potential With Ai, Adam Tatarynowicz, Utz Claassen

Asian Management Insights

Innovation managers must learn how to harness AI’s transformative potential.

An Idealist’S Approach For Smart Contract Correctness, Duy Tai Nguyen, Hong Long Pham, Jun Sun, Quang Loc Le

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this work, we experiment an idealistic approach for smart contract correctness verification and enforcement, based on the assumption that developers are either desired or required to provide a correctness specification due to the importance of smart contracts and the fact that they are immutable after deployment. We design a static verification system with a specification language which supports fully compositional verification (with the help of function specifications, contract invariants, loop invariants and call invariants). Our approach has been implemented in a tool named iContract which automatically proves the correctness of a smart contract statically or checks the unverified part …

Depaul Digest

DePaul Magazine

College of Education Professor Jason Goulah fosters hope, happiness and global citizenship through DePaul’s Institute for Daisaku Ikeda Studies in Education. Associate Journalism Professor Jill Hopke shares how to talk about climate change. News briefs from DePaul’s 10 colleges and schools: Occupational Therapy Standardized Patient Program, Financial Planning Certificate program, Business Education in Technology and Analytics Hub, Racial Justice Initiative, Teacher Quality Partnership grant, Intimate Partner Violence and Brain Injury collaboration, School of Music Career Closet, Sports Photojournalism course, DePaul Migration Collaborative’s Solutions Lab, Inclusive Screenwriting courses. New appointments: School of Music Dean John Milbauer, College of Education Dean Jennifer …

A Developed Framework For Studying Cyberethical Behaviour In North Central Nigeria, Aderinola Ololade Dunmade, Adeyinka Tella, Uloma Doris Onuoha

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

ICT advancements have enabled more online activities, resulting in several cyberethical behaviours. Literature documents prevalence of plagiarism, and online fraud, among other misbehaviours. While behaviour has been explained by several theories, as scholarship and research advances, frameworks are modified to include more constructs. The researchers modified Fishbein and Ajzen (2011)'s Reasoned Action Approach to study female postgraduate students' perspectives toward cyberethical behaviour in North Central Nigerian universities.

The study focused on four variables, which were adequately captured by the model: perception, awareness, and attitude.

An adapted questionnaire collected quantitative data. This study used multistage sampling. A sample size of 989 …

Leveraging Vr/Ar/Mr/Xr Technologies To Improve Cybersecurity Education, Training, And Operations, Paul Wagner, Dalal Alharthi

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

The United States faces persistent threats conducting malicious cyber campaigns that threaten critical infrastructure, companies and their intellectual property, and the privacy of its citizens. Additionally, there are millions of unfilled cybersecurity positions, and the cybersecurity skills gap continues to widen. Most companies believe that this problem has not improved and nearly 44% believe it has gotten worse over the past 10 years. Threat actors are continuing to evolve their tactics, techniques, and procedures for conducting attacks on public and private targets. Education institutions and companies must adopt emerging technologies to develop security professionals and to increase cybersecurity awareness holistically. …

Integrating Nist And Iso Cybersecurity Audit And Risk Assessment Frameworks Into Cameroonian Law, Bernard Ngalim

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

This paper reviews cybersecurity laws and regulations in Cameroon, focusing on cybersecurity and information security audits and risk assessments. The importance of cybersecurity risk assessment and the implementation of security controls to cure deficiencies noted during risk assessments or audits is a critical step in developing cybersecurity resilience. Cameroon's cybersecurity legal framework provides for audits but does not explicitly enumerate controls. Consequently, integrating relevant controls from the NIST frameworks and ISO Standards can improve the cybersecurity posture in Cameroon while waiting for a comprehensive revision of the legal framework. NIST and ISO are internationally recognized as best practices in information …

An Interdisciplinary Approach To Experiential Learning In Cyberbiosecurity And Agriculture Through Workforce Development, Kellie Johnson, Tiffany Drape, Joseph Oakes, Joseph Simpson, Ann Brown, Donna M. Westfall-Rudd, Susan Duncan

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Cyberbiosecurity and workforce development in agriculture and the life sciences (ALS) is a growing area of need in the curriculum in higher education. Students that pursue majors related to ALS often do not include training in cyber-related concepts or expose the ‘hidden curriculum’ of seeking internships and jobs. Exposing students through workforce development training and hands-on engagement with industry professionals can provide learning opportunities to bridge the two and is an area of growth and demand as the workforce evolves. The objectives of this work were 1) to learn key concepts in cybersecurity, including data security, visualization, and analysis, to …

Infrastructure As Code For Cybersecurity Training, Rui Pinto, Rolando Martins, Carlos Novo

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

An organization's infrastructure rests upon the premise that cybersecurity professionals have specific knowledge in administrating and protecting it against outside threats. Without this expertise, sensitive information could be leaked to malicious actors and cause damage to critical systems. These attacks tend to become increasingly specialized, meaning cybersecurity professionals must ensure proficiency in specific areas. Naturally, recommendations include creating advanced practical training scenarios considering realistic situations to help trainees gain detailed knowledge. However, the caveats of high-cost infrastructure and difficulties in the deployment process of this kind of system, primarily due to the manual process of pre-configuring software needed for the …

Building The Operational Technology (Ot) Cybersecurity Workforce: What Are Employers Looking For?, Christopher A. Ramezan, Paul M. Coffy, Jared Lemons

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

A trained workforce is needed to protect operational technology (OT) and industrial control systems (ICS) within national critical infrastructure and critical industries. However, what knowledge, skills, and credentials are employers looking for in OT cybersecurity professionals? To best train the next generation of OT cybersecurity professionals, an understanding of current OT cybersecurity position requirements is needed. Thus, this work analyzes 100 OT cybersecurity positions to provide insights on key prerequisite requirements such as prior professional experience, education, industry certifications, security clearances, programming expertise, soft verbal and written communication skills, knowledge of OT frameworks, standards, and network communication protocols, and position …

Leading K-12 Community Responsiveness To Cyber Threats Via Education Of School Community, Michele Kielty, A. Renee Staton

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Cyber threats have escalated in recent years. Many of these threats have been direct and vicious attacks on K-12 systems. Educators are rarely trained on how to address cyber threats from a systemic and educational perspective when such challenges arise in their school buildings. This article explains the cyber threats that are looming large for K-12 systems and provides concrete tools for school leaders to employ in order to provide preventive education to their school communities.

A Mixed-Method Study Exploring Cyber Ranges And Educator Motivation, Cheryl Beauchamp, Holly M. Matusovich

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

A growing number of academic institutions have invested resources to integrate cyber ranges for applying and developing cybersecurity-related knowledge and skills. Cyber range developers and administrators provided much of what is known about cyber range resources and possible educational applications; however, the educator provides valuable understanding of the cyber range resources they use, how they use them, what they value, and what they do not value. This study provides the cyber range user perspective of cyber ranges in cybersecurity education by describing how K-12 educators are motivated using cyber ranges. Using mixed methods, this study explored educator motivation associated with …

Like Treating The Symptom Rather Than The Cause - The Omission Of Courses Over Terrorism In Nsa Designated Institutions, Ida L. Oesteraas

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

The National Security Agency (NSA) awards Center of Academic Excellence (CAE) designations to institutions that commit to producing cybersecurity professionals who will work in careers that reduce vulnerabilities in our national infrastructure. A review of the curricula in the 327 institutions and their degree programs reveal that only two programs offer a required course about terrorism. Given the fluid nature of terrorism and its threat to national infrastructure, the omission is concerning. It is recommended that NSA-certified cybersecurity programs begin implementing educational content that aim to teach about this emerging crime and justice issue. One suggestion is to embrace the …

Integrating Certifications Into The Cybersecurity College Curriculum: The Efficacy Of Education With Certifications To Increase The Cybersecurity Workforce, Binh Tran, Karen C. Benson, Lorraine Jonassen

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

One only needs to listen to the news reports to recognize that the gap between securing the enterprise and cybersecurity threats, breaches, and vulnerabilities appears to be widening at an alarming rate. An un-tapped resource to combat these attacks lies in the students of the secondary educational system. Necessary in the cybersecurity education is a 3-tiered approach to quickly escalate the student into a workplace-ready graduate. The analogy used is a three-legged-stool, where curriculum content, hands-on skills, and certifications are equal instruments in the edification of the cybersecurity student. This paper endeavors to delve into the 3^rd leg of …

Cybersecurity Challenges And Awareness Of The Multi-Generational Learners In Nepal, Raj Kumar Dhungana, Lina Gurung Dr, Hem Poudyal

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Increased exposure to technologies has lately emerged as one of the everyday realities of digital natives, especially K-12 students, and teachers, the digital immigrants. Protection from cybersecurity risks in digital learning spaces is a human right, but students are increasingly exposed to high-risk cyberspace without time to cope with cybersecurity risks. This study, using a survey (N-891 students and 157 teachers) and in-depth interviews (27 students and 14 teachers), described the students' cybersecurity-related experiences and challenges in Nepal. This study revealed that the school’s cybersecurity support system is poor and teachers has very low awareness and competencies to protect students …

Editorial, Michael E. Whitman, Herbert J. Mattord

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Editorial for Volume 2023, Issue 2

Privacy Harm And Non-Compliance From A Legal Perspective, Suvineetha Herath, Haywood Gelman, Lisa Mckee

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

In today's data-sharing paradigm, personal data has become a valuable resource that intensifies the risk of unauthorized access and data breach. Increased data mining techniques used to analyze big data have posed significant risks to data security and privacy. Consequently, data breaches are a significant threat to individual privacy. Privacy is a multifaceted concept covering many areas, including the right to access, erasure, and rectify personal data. This paper explores the legal aspects of privacy harm and how they transform into legal action. Privacy harm is the negative impact to an individual as a result of the unauthorized release, gathering, …

What You See Is Not What You Know: Studying Deception In Deepfake Video Manipulation, Cathryn Allen, Bryson R. Payne, Tamirat Abegaz, Chuck Robertson

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Research indicates that deceitful videos tend to spread rapidly online and influence people’s opinions and ideas. Because of this, video misinformation via deepfake video manipulation poses a significant online threat. This study aims to discover what factors can influence viewers’ capability to distinguish deepfake videos from genuine video footage. This work focuses on exploring deepfake videos’ potential use for deception and misinformation by exploring people’s ability to determine whether videos are deepfakes in a survey consisting of deepfake videos and original unedited videos. The participants viewed a set of four videos and were asked to judge whether the videos shown …

Service-Oriented Framework For Developing Interoperable E-Health Systems In A Low-Income Country, Bonface Abima, Agnes Nakakawa, Geoffrey Mayoka Kituyi

The African Journal of Information Systems

e-Health solutions in low-income countries are fragmented, address institution-specific needs, and do little to address the strategic need for inter-institutional exchange of health data. Although various e-health interoperability frameworks exist, contextual factors often hinder their effective adoption in low-income countries. This underlines the need to investigate such factors and to use findings to adapt existing e-health interoperability models. Following a design science approach, this research involved conducting an exploratory survey among 90 medical and Information Technology personnel from 67 health facilities in Uganda. Findings were used to derive requirements for e-health interoperability, and to orchestrate elements of a service oriented …

Metaverse’S Rise And Decline, Nir Kshetri, Jeffrey Voas, Yogesh K. Dwivedi, Diana Rojas Torres, Gayle O'Keefe

Business: Faculty Publications

Major companies in diverse industries have recently downsized or closed down their metaverse divisions. The authors look at the factors that have led to such strategies.

Visually Analyzing Company-Wide Software Service Dependencies: An Industrial Case Study, Sebastian Baltes, Brian Pfitzmann, Thomas Kowark, Christoph Treude, Fabian Beck

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Managing dependencies between software services is a crucial task for any company operating cloud applications. Visualizations can help to understand and maintain these com-plex dependencies. In this paper, we present a force-directed service dependency visualization and filtering tool that has been developed and used within SAP. The tool's use cases include guiding service retirement as well as understanding service deployment landscapes and their relationship to the company's organizational structure. We report how we built and adapted the tool under strict time constraints to address the requirements of our users. We further share insights on how we enabled internal adoption. For …

A Gentle Introduction To Chatgpt, Steven W. Holloway

Libraries

A guest lecture on the state of commercial generative transformer technology, mid-2023, to a general audience at Staunton Public Library.

Social Media & Privacy: Understanding Privacy In The Age Of Content Creator Culture, Robert Tagoe, Raphael Amponsah, Emmanuel Awuni Kolog, Eric Afful-Dadzie

African Conference on Information Systems and Technology

In today's digital age, content creators are gaining public attention and becoming highly influential. With that increased influence, it is important to acknowledge the privacy concerns within this culture. This interpretive research study seeks to identify and understand the dynamics of privacy within the content creator culture. This research will leverage information from interviews with content creators from various social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Using theories to understand the phenomena, theories of privacy calculus, privacy paradox and self-disclosure, will be used to view how content creators define and navigate privacy, strategies employed to control personal …

Factors Influencing The Retention Of Millennial Software Developers In South African Companies, Kim Fouche, Maureen Tanner

African Conference on Information Systems and Technology

South Africa has an Information Technology skills shortage leading to high turnover of Information Technology professionals. Not only do companies face significant costs in replacing software developers, but high mobility also affects staff morale. Millennials are known to be more loyal to their own needs and do not tend to stay at companies for long, increasing the complexities of retention. This study explores the factors that influence the retention of millennial software developers in South African companies. The qualitative study was carried out using online semi-structured interviews. The study found that work environment, lifestyle, and management style, play a key …

The Reputational And Ethical Consequences Of Deceptive Chatbot Use, Jack Mcguire, David De Cremer, Yorck Hesselbarth, Leander De Schutter, Ke Michael Mai, Alain Van Hiel

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The use of chatbots is becoming widespread as they offer significant economic opportunities. At the same time, however, customers seem to prefer interacting with human operators when making inquiries and as a result are not as cooperative with chatbots when their use is known. This specific situation creates an incentive for organizations to use chatbots without disclosing this to customers. Will this deceptive practice harm the reputation of the organization, and the employees who work for them? Across four experimental studies, we demonstrate that prospective customers, who interact with an organization using chatbots, perceive the organization to be less ethical …

Forecasting Stock Indices With The Covid-19 Infection Rate As An Exogenous Variable, Mohammad Saha A. Patwary

School of Computing and Informatics

Forecasting stock market indices is challenging because stock prices are usually nonlinear and non- stationary. COVID-19 has had a significant impact on stock market volatility, which makes forecasting more challenging. Since the number of confirmed cases significantly impacted the stock price index; hence, it has been considered a covariate in this analysis. The primary focus of this study is to address the challenge of forecasting volatile stock indices during Covid-19 by employing time series analysis. In particular, the goal is to find the best method to predict future stock price indices in relation to the number of COVID-19 infection rates. …

Predictive Ai For The S&P 500 Index, Jacqueline Rose Perry

Computer Science Senior Theses

Artificial intelligence has powerful applications in virtually every field, and the financial world is no exception. Utilizing various elements of artificial intelligence, this research aims to predict the future value of the S&P 500 index using numerous models, and in doing so, identify relevant features. More specifically, models that include combinations of historical data, public sentiment, and technical indicators were employed to predict the stock price one day and three days forward. To account for public opinion, the sentiment of tweets and news headlines from the beginning of 2015 through the end of 2019 was calculated using FinBERT, a pre-trained …