An Adaptable Approach for Successful SIEM Adoption in Companies

In corporations around the world, the topic of cybersecurity and information security is becoming increasingly important as the number of cyberattacks on themselves continues to grow. Nowadays, it is no longer just a matter of protecting against cyberattacks, but rather of detecting such attacks at an early stage and responding accordingly. There is currently no generic methodological approach for the implementation of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems that takes academic aspects into account and can be applied independently of the product or developers of the systems. Applying Hevner's design science research approach, the goal of this paper is to develop a holistic procedure model for implementing respective SIEM systems in corporations. According to the study during the validation phase, the procedure model was verified to be applicable. As desire for future research, the procedure model should be applied in various implementation projects in different enterprises to analyze its applicability and completeness.Comment: Submitted to the AC2023 Conferenc

On the relevance of design knowledge for design-oriented business and information systems engineering : supplemental considerations and further application examples

This contribution represents a supplement to the article "On the Relevance of Design Knowledge for Design-Oriented Business and Information Systems Engineering — Conceptual Foundations, Application Example, and Implications" in the special issue on Science of Business and Information Systems Engineering of the journal Business and Information Systems Engineering (BISE) in 2010. It contains further application examples concerning the introduced reference framework for systemizing design knowledge. Besides the comprehensive documentation of design knowledge concerning eventdriven process chains (EPC) with the dedicated literary sources and an evaluation of the evidence of the provided statements, in this report the framework is furthermore applied for the documentation of design knowledge about the Process Grammar Approach, another technique for process design presented by Lee et al. in MIS Quarterly in 2008. Subsequently the results are discussed.Der vorliegende Beitrag dient als Anhang zum Artikel "On the Relevance of Design Knowledge for Design-Oriented Business and Information Systems Engineering — Conceptual Foundations, Application Example, and Implications", der in der Zeitschrift Business and Information Systems Engineering (BISE) zum Schwerpunktheft "Science of Business and Information Systems Engineering" im Jahr 2010 erschienen ist. Er ergänzt das dort aufgeführte Beispiel zur Anwendung des Bezugsrahmens zur Dokumentation von Gestaltungswissen. Der Bezugsrahmen wurde verwendet, um Gestaltungswissen zur Modellierungstechnik "Ereignisgesteuerte Prozesskette" (EPK) zu systematisieren, zu explizieren und hinsichtlich seiner Evidenz zu bewerten. Die dort gegebene Übersicht wird im vorliegenden Beitrag ergänzt. Darüber hinaus findet sich in diesem IWi-Heft ein weiteres Anwendungsbeispiel, das aufgrund von Platzrestriktionen im Journalartikel nicht präsentiert werden konnte. Der Bezugsrahmen dient hier der Systematisierung und Dokumentation von Gestaltungswissen zur Technik des Process Grammar Approach, der von Lee et al. 2008 im Journal MIS Quarterly präsentiert wurde. Weiterhin werden die erhobenen Ergebnisse im vorliegenden Beitrag diskutiert

BPMNt : a proposal for flexible process tailoring representation in BPMN /

Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is a de-facto standard for business process modeling, which focuses on the representation of the process behavior. However, it can also succeed in representing the behavior of software processes, since they are a type of business process. Although BPMN has been extensively used for modeling processes in different domains, its standard specification does not have any mechanism to support users in activities related to process adaptation (tailoring). Moreover, researches extending BPMN are based on complex consolidated models, which hamper the analysis and maintenance of individual variant process models and are not appropriate for application domains in which process variations are difficult to predict, such as in software development processes. Thus, our objective was to provide a BPMN-compliant extension and associated mechanisms for specifying flexible process tailoring on models produced with this language while ensuring the correctness of adapted process models and explicitly capturing change traces. We have focused our research on the domains of Software Process Engineering (SPE) and Business Process Management (BPM). At last, we evaluated the applicability of the proposal for representing realistic tailoring scenarios in both domains.BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) é um padrão para modelagem de processos de negócio, que tem seu foco na representação do comportamento de processos. No entanto, ele pode também ser usado para representar o comportamento de processos de software, já que eles são um tipo de processo de negócio. Embora BPMN tem sido extensivamente usado para modelar processos em diferentes domínios, sua especificação padrão não possui nenhum mecanismo para apoiar usuários em atividades relacionadas à adaptação de processos. Pesquisas que estendem o padrão são baseadas em modelos complexos, que dificultam a análise e manutenção de modelos variantes, e não são apropriadas para domínios de aplicação onde variações de processo são difíceis de predizer, como em processos de desenvolvimento de software. Assim, nosso objetivo foi fornecer uma extensão para BPMN, chamada BPMNt, e mecanismos de suporte para especificar, de modo flexível, adaptações em processos modelados com esta linguagem. BPMNt deve também garantir a corretude de modelos adaptados e explicitamente capturar rastros de mudanças realizadas. Essa pesquisa teve como foco os domínios de Engenharia de Processos de Software e Gerenciamento de Processos de Negócio. Por fim, nós avaliamos a aplicabilidade da proposta para representar cenários de adaptação reais em ambos os domínios

Context-aware Process Management for the Software Engineering Domain

Historically, software development projects are challenged with problems concerning budgets, deadlines and the quality of the produced software. Such problems have various causes like the high number of unplanned activities and the operational dynamics present in this domain. Most activities are knowledge-intensive and require collaboration of various actors. Additionally, the produced software is intangible and therefore difficult to measure. Thus, software producers are often insufficiently aware of the state of their source code, while suitable software quality measures are often applied too late in the project lifecycle, if at all. Software development processes are used by the majority of software companies to ensure the quality and reproducibility of their development endeavors. Typically, these processes are abstractly defined utilizing process models. However, they still need to be interpreted by individuals and be manually executed, resulting in governance and compliance issues. The environment is sufficiently dynamic that unforeseen situations can occur due to various events, leading to potential aberrations and process governance issues. Furthermore, as process models are implemented manually without automation support, they impose additional work for the executing humans. Their advantages often remain hidden as aligning the planned process with reality is cumbersome. In response to these problems, this thesis contributes the Context-aware Process Management (CPM) framework. The latter enables holistic and automated support for software engineering projects and their processes. In particular, it provides concepts for extending process management technology to support software engineering process models in their entirety. Furthermore, CPM contributes an approach to integrate the enactment of the process models better with the real-world process by introducing a set of contextual extensions. Various events occurring in the course of the projects can be utilized to improve process support and activities outside the realm of the process models can be covered. That way, the continuously growing divide between the plan and reality that often occurs in software engineering projects can be avoided. Finally, the CPM framework comprises facilities to better connect the software engineering process with other important aspects and areas of software engineering projects. This includes automated process-oriented support for software quality management or software engineering knowledge management. The CPM framework has been validated by a prototypical implementation, various sophisticated scenarios, and its practical application at two software companies

Marketingeffizienzanalyse mittels Efficient Frontier Benchmarking : eine Anwendung der Data Envelopment Analysis

Knappere Budgets bei gleichzeitig steigenden Marketingkosten und wachsenden Kundenanforderungen setzen Unternehmen zunehmend unter Performancedruck. Nachdem in den meisten Unternehmensbereichen Kostensenkungspotenziale bereits ausgeschöpft sind, gewinnt eine stärkere Effizienzorientierung auch im Marketing - und speziell im Vertrieb - an Bedeutung. Manager stehen zunehmend in der Pflicht, den "Return on Marketing", d.h. den Wertbeitrag der Marketingaktivitäten und -instrumente nachzuweisen, um ihre Budgets zu legitimieren. Bislang besteht jedoch ein Mangel an einer einheitlichen und fundierten Methode zur Bestimmung der Performance der Marketingfunktion. Mit der Data Envelopment Analysis wird in der vorliegenden Arbeit ein aus der ökonomischen Produktionstheorie stammendes, universell einsetzbares Verfahren vorgestellt, welches sich gerade für eine Effizienzanalyse im Marketing eignet. Die DEA ermöglicht die Quantifizierung von Effizienzlücken von Marketingeinheiten (z.B. Werbekampagnen, Promotions, Produkten, Marken, Außendienstteams) unter simultaner Berücksichtigung mehrerer Input- und Outputgrößen. Grundlage ist die Schätzung einer Randproduktionsfunktion (Frontier Function), die als Referenzfunktion zur Effizienzbewertung herangezogen wird. Diese gibt an, wie die besten Einheiten Inputs in Outputs transformieren. Sie stellt somit ein ganzes Set potentieller Referenzpunkte bzw. effizienter Strategien dar, aus dem für jede ineffiziente Einheit entsprechend der spezifischen Stärken und Schwächen eine individuelle Referenzeinheit bestimmt wird. Diese dient dazu, die relative Effizienz zu messen, individuelle Zielvorgaben zu ermitteln, Ursachen festgestellter Ineffizienzen aufzudecken sowie Handlungsempfehlungen zur Effizienzsteigerung zu entwickeln. Die Praxistauglichkeit des Verfahrens wird anhand einer Anwendung im Vertrieb eines großen Pharmakonzerns demonstriert

Reference Model for Management of RFID System Implementations

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is adopted in supply chain as it possesses high potential for optimization. However, the adoption is constrained with management and technological issues for certain domains. Applicability and profitability of the technology and implementation approaches as well as maturity of the technology and data integration are few of the concerns in this regard. Therefore, many enterprises are still skeptical about investment in RFID technology. Rightly, for instance, there are no appropriate approaches for management of the RFID system implementations at present that consider specific concerns of preparation of the food manufacturing enterprises. This research suggests a reference model for the purpose. The model is a result of extensive literature reviews and practice-oriented research aiming practical solutions to the problems of the respective domain. The model, which involves planning, organization and realization of RFID system implementation activities, considers multiple facets of RFID system implementations in order to increase understanding of RFID technology (i.e. knowledge development), ease decision making of an RFID implementation (i.e. willingness), and reduce cost and complexity of RFID system implementations (i.e. effectiveness and efficiency). It is an artifact of design-oriented information system research and includes a frame of reference, a process model, input and output templates, and tools and techniques. The model is applied in ‘real life context’ in order to achieve objectives of the involved enterprises. Similarly, the model aims effectiveness and efficiency in the future use, for example, by providing free of cost acquisition and appropriateness for manufacturing industries of food businesses of Saxony-Anhalt. However, adaptation efforts (e.g. by instantiation or specialization) may vary depending on the skills of users of individual enterprises. The reference model provides flexibility in terms of independence from specific vendors, openness by complying with available standards (e.g. PMBOK), and relationship to RFID system development artifacts during technical work realization

Project-specific software engineering methods : composition, enactment, and quality assurance

Softwareentwicklungsmethoden beschreiben Best-Practice-Ansätze für die Entwicklung von Softwaresystemen. Damit sind Methoden einfachen Ad-Hoc-Ansätzen überlegen und ihr Einsatz unterstützt die Entwicklung von hochqualitativer Software. Jedoch erfordert der effektive Einsatz von Methoden, drei Dinge: Erstens müssen Methoden auf aktuellen Methodeninhalten basieren, zweitens müssen sie auf den Projektkontext angepasst werden und drittens müssen sie wie vorgeschrieben von dem Projektteam angewendet werden. Ansonsten gefährden veraltete, unangepasste oder falsch angewendete Methoden den Projekterfolg. Während andere Ansätze nur einige dieser Aspekte abdecken, präsentieren wir einen umfassenden, werkzeugbasierten Ansatz, der alle Aspekte des Managements von Softwareentwicklungsmethoden abdeckt. Unser Ansatz ermöglicht die Erstellung von formalen, kompositions-basierten Methodenmodellen. Erstens werden Methodenmodelle aus formalen Methodenbausteinen zusammengesetzt. Diese repräsentieren, aktuelle Methodeninhalte und werden in einer aktualisierbaren Methodenbasis gehalten. Zweitens werden Methodenmodelle projektspezifisch und kontextbasiert komponiert. Drittens wird ihre korrekte Anwendung durch den Einsatz einer Process-Engine sichergestellt. Unsere Proof-Of-Concept-Implementierung demonstriert die Machbarkeit unseres Ansatzes und stellt Werkzeugunterstützung für die Definition von Methodenbausteinen, die konsistente Methodenmodellkomposition und die Ausführung mit Standard-Process-Engines zur Verfügung.Software engineering methods describe structured, repeatable best practice approaches for the engineering of software systems. The project team of a software project enacts a method and applies the described activities. As methods are superior to ad-hoc build and fix approaches, they benefit the creation of high-quality software. However, for the efficient use of methods, first, they need to be based on state of the practice method content, second, they need to be tailored to the project context, and third, they need to be enacted as prescribed. Otherwise, outdated, unsuitable, or wrongly enacted methods can impede the creation of the software system. While other approaches focus on supporting some of these aspects, our approach is a holistic tool-supported approach that covers all of them. It allows creating formally defined composition-based method models. First, method models are composed from formal building blocks that represent method content and are stored in an extensible, updatable repository. Second, they are composed specifically for a project and tailored to its characteristics. Here the novel notion of method patterns is used to guide the composition process. Third, their correct enactment is supported with a process engine. Our proof-of-concept implementation demonstrates the feasibility of the approach. It provides tooling to define building blocks, to compose them to method models consistently, and to execute them with standard process engines.Masud Fazal-BaqaieTag der Verteidigung: 15.09.2016Universität Paderborn, Fakultät für Elektrotechnik, Informatik und Mathematik, Univ., Dissertation, 201

The Semantic Shadow : Combining User Interaction with Context Information for Semantic Web-Site Annotation

This thesis develops the concept of the Semantic Shadow (SemS), a model for managing contentual and structural annotations on web page elements and their values. The model supports a contextual weighting of the annotated information, allowing to specify the annotation values in relation to the evaluation context. A procedure is presented, which allows to manage and process this context-dependent meta information on web page elements using a dedicated programming interface. Two distinct implementations for the model have been developed: One based on Java objects, the other using the Resource Description Framework (RDF) as modeling backend. This RDF-based storage allows to integrate the annotations of the Semantic Shadow with other information of the Semantic Web. To demonstrate the application of the Semantic Shadow concept, a procedure to optimize web based user interfaces based on the structural semantics has been developed: Assuming a mobile client, a requested web page is dynamically adapted by a proxy prototype, where the context-awareness of the adaptation can be directly modeled alongside with the structural annotations. To overcome the drawback of missing annotations for existing web pages, this thesis introduces a concept to derive context-dependent meta-information on the web pages from their usage: From the observation of the users' interaction with a web page, certain context-dependent structural information about the concerned web page elements can be derived and stored in the annotation model of the Semantic Shadow concept.In dieser Arbeit wird das Konzept des Semantic Shadow (dt. Semantischer Schatten) entwickelt, ein Programmier-Modell um Webseiten-Elemente mit inhaltsbezogenen und strukturellen Anmerkungen zu versehen. Das Modell unterstützt dabei eine kontextabhängige Gewichtung der Anmerkungen, so dass eine Anmerkung in Bezug zum Auswertungs-Kontext gesetzt werden kann. Zur Verwaltung und Verarbeitung dieser kontextbezogenen Meta-Informationen für Webseiten-Elemente wurde im Rahmen der Arbeit eine Programmierschnittstelle definiert. Dazu wurden zwei Implementierungen der Schnittstelle entwickelt: Eine basiert ausschließlich auf Java-Objekten, die andere baut auf einem RDF-Modell auf. Die RDF-basierte Persistierung erlaubt eine Integration der Semantic-Shadow-Anmerkungen mit anderen Anwendungen des Semantic Webs. Um die Anwendungsmöglichkeiten des Semantic-Shadow-Konzepts darzustellen, wurde eine Vorgehensweise zur Optimierung von webbasierten Benutzerschnittstellen auf Grundlage von semantischen Strukturinformationen entwickelt: Wenn ein mobiler Benutzer eine Webseite anfordert, wird diese dynamisch durch einen Proxy angepasst. Die Kontextabhängigkeit dieser Anpassung wird dabei bereits direkt mit den Struktur-Anmerkungen modelliert. Für bestehende Webseiten liegen zumeist keine Annotationen vor. Daher wird in dieser Arbeit ein Konzept vorgestellt, kontextabhängige Meta-Informationen aus der Benutzung der Webseiten zu bestimmen: Durch Beobachtung der Benutzer-Interaktionen mit den Webseiten-Elementen ist es möglich bestimmte kontextabhängige Strukturinformationen abzuleiten und als Anmerkungen im Modell des Semantic-Shadow-Konzepts zu persistieren