Cyber Infrastructure Protection: Vol. II

View the Executive SummaryIncreased reliance on the Internet and other networked systems raise the risks of cyber attacks that could harm our nation’s cyber infrastructure. The cyber infrastructure encompasses a number of sectors including: the nation’s mass transit and other transportation systems; banking and financial systems; factories; energy systems and the electric power grid; and telecommunications, which increasingly rely on a complex array of computer networks, including the public Internet. However, many of these systems and networks were not built and designed with security in mind. Therefore, our cyber infrastructure contains many holes, risks, and vulnerabilities that may enable an attacker to cause damage or disrupt cyber infrastructure operations. Threats to cyber infrastructure safety and security come from hackers, terrorists, criminal groups, and sophisticated organized crime groups; even nation-states and foreign intelligence services conduct cyber warfare. Cyber attackers can introduce new viruses, worms, and bots capable of defeating many of our efforts. Costs to the economy from these threats are huge and increasing. Government, business, and academia must therefore work together to understand the threat and develop various modes of fighting cyber attacks, and to establish and enhance a framework to assess the vulnerability of our cyber infrastructure and provide strategic policy directions for the protection of such an infrastructure. This book addresses such questions as: How serious is the cyber threat? What technical and policy-based approaches are best suited to securing telecommunications networks and information systems infrastructure security? What role will government and the private sector play in homeland defense against cyber attacks on critical civilian infrastructure, financial, and logistical systems? What legal impediments exist concerning efforts to defend the nation against cyber attacks, especially in preventive, preemptive, and retaliatory actions?https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1527/thumbnail.jp

Intelligent Detection and Recovery from Cyberattacks for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

Cyberattacks threaten continuously computer security in companies. These attacks evolve everyday, being more and more sophisticated and robust. In addition, they take advantage of security breaches in organizations and companies, both public and private. Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME), due to their structure and economic characteristics, are particularly damaged when a cyberattack takes place. Although organizations and companies put lots of efforts in implementing security solutions, they are not always effective. This is specially relevant for SMEs, which do not have enough economic resources to introduce such solutions. Thus, there is a need of providing SMEs with affordable, intelligent security systems with the ability of detecting and recovering from the most detrimental attacks. In this paper, we propose an intelligent cybersecurity platform, which has been designed with the objective of helping SMEs to make their systems and network more secure. The aim of this platform is to provide a solution optimizing detection and recovery from attacks. To do this, we propose the application of proactive security techniques in combination with both Machine Learning (ML) and blockchain. Our proposal is enclosed in the IASEC project, which allows providing security in each of the phases of an attack. Like this, we help SMEs in prevention, avoiding systems and network from being attacked; detection, identifying when there is something potentially harmful for the systems; containment, trying to stop the effects of an attack; and response, helping to recover the systems to a normal state

Cybersecurity: Are we Ready in Latin America and the Caribbean?

This study aims to deepen our understanding of the cybersecurity risks, challenges and opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean. Utilizing surveys and other data provided by experts and officials from 32 OAS Member States, the report examines each country’s cyber maturity in five dimensions: i) Cybersecurity policy and strategy; ii) Cyber culture and society; iii) Cybersecurity education, training and skills; iv) Legal and regulatory frameworks; and v) Standards, organizations, and technologies. It should also be noted that the OAS Cybersecurity Program received generous assistance from Microsoft, which helped identify key areas to be presented in the project’s inception phase. The report’s country-by-country approach should help us to develop a more nuanced understanding of each of our States’ cybersecurity regimes and assist policymakers and technicians to strategically improve existing cybersecurity efforts, and to design and implement new initiatives going forward. It must be acknowledged that these findings merely represent a snapshot in time of an ever changing landscape. Further studies will be necessary to continue to keep abreast of the state of cybersecurity in the Americas and the Caribbean. Nevertheless, we hope that by improving our collective understanding of the cybersecurity challenges and opportunities presently confronting our region, the information and analysis contained in this report will assist stakeholders in all sectors government, private sector, academia, and civil society to better work together to build a more secure, resilient and productive cyberspace in our hemisphere. We look forward to continuing to play a role in this vital mission

Cross Domain IW Threats to SOF Maritime Missions: Implications for U.S. SOF

As cyber vulnerabilities proliferate with the expansion of connected devices, wherein security is often forsaken for ease of use, Special Operations Forces (SOF) cannot escape the obvious, massive risk that they are assuming by incorporating emerging technologies into their toolkits. This is especially true in the maritime sector where SOF operates nearshore in littoral zones. As SOF—in support to the U.S. Navy— increasingly operate in these contested maritime environments, they will gradually encounter more hostile actors looking to exploit digital vulnerabilities. As such, this monograph comes at a perfect time as the world becomes more interconnected but also more vulnerable

Cybersecurity

The Internet has given rise to new opportunities for the public sector to improve efficiency and better serve constituents in the form of e-government. But with a rapidly growing user base globally and an increasing reliance on the Internet, digital tools are also exposing the public sector to new risks. An accessible primer, Cybersecurity: Public Sector Threats and Responses focuses on the convergence of globalization, connectivity, and the migration of public sector functions online. It identifies the challenges you need to be aware of and examines emerging trends and strategies from around the world. Offering practical guidance for addressing contemporary risks, the book is organized into three sections: Global Trends—considers international e-government trends, includes case studies of common cyber threats and presents efforts of the premier global institution in the field National and Local Policy Approaches—examines the current policy environment in the United States and Europe and illustrates challenges at all levels of government Practical Considerations—explains how to prepare for cyber attacks, including an overview of relevant U.S. Federal cyber incident response policies, an organizational framework for assessing risk, and emerging trends Also suitable for classroom use, this book will help you understand the threats facing your organization and the issues to consider when thinking about cybersecurity from a policy perspective

Racialization of Latinos and Implications for Health Following September 11th: Findings From a Northern Border Community.

Few studies have investigated the health implications of post-9/11 restrictive immigration policies, practices, and sentiments for Latinos living in northern border communities. This dissertation examines implications of this environment for the health for Latinos in Detroit, MI. First, I examined experiences of first, 1.5, and second generation Mexican and Central American women with racialization processes. Second, I examined women’s responses to racialization and pathways through which these experiences may be associated with health. Third, drawing on data from the Healthy Environments Partnership surveys, 2002 and 2008, I examined changes in everyday and acute unfair treatment by race and ethnicity for 219 Detroit adults. I tested the association of these changes in discrimination with blood pressure. The first analysis suggests that women navigated dynamic racialization processes. Their descriptions depict social agents engaged in unequal interactions with women, and with members of their social networks, in domains in which they had power. Social statuses and the contexts in which racialization occurred shaped women’s experiences with these processes and influenced their access to social and economic resources. Results from the second analysis suggested that women’s responses to racialization were contingent upon the resources on which they could draw to prevent, mitigate, or resist these processes. Implications for health are multifaceted and apparent in multiple life domains. The third analysis found that Latinos reported significantly greater increases in lifetime acute unfair treatment, but not everyday or acute unfair treatment in the past year, compared to non-Latino whites (NLWs). Changes in lifetime acute unfair treatment were not associated with differential changes in blood pressure for Latinos relative to NLWs. In models restricted to Latinos, change in lifetime acute unfair treatment was positively associated with blood pressure, suggesting that these experiences manifest in a short time period (6 years) in compromised health. Together, these results suggest that Latinos have encountered increasing discrimination over the past decade, that these changes are associated with restrictions in access to resources that are essential to health, and with objective indicators of health. Multilevel interventions and policies that support the full inclusion of Latinos will promote health and health equity.PHDHealth Behavior and Health EducationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111428/1/alanamw_1.pd

An Examination of E-Banking Fraud Prevention and Detection in Nigerian Banks

E-banking offers a number of advantages to financial institutions, including convenience in terms of time and money. However, criminal activities in the information age have changed the way banking operations are performed. This has made e-banking an area of interest. The growth of cybercrime – particularly hacking, identity theft, phishing, Trojans, service denial attacks and account takeover– has created several challenges for financial institutions, especially regarding how they protect their assets and prevent their customers from becoming victims of cyber fraud. These criminal activities have remained prevalent due to certain features of cyber, such as the borderless nature of the internet and the continuous growth of the computer networks. Following these identified challenges for financial institutions, this study examines e-banking fraud prevention and detection in the Nigerian banking sector; particularly the current nature, impacts, contributing factors, and prevention and detection mechanisms of e-banking fraud in Nigerian banking institutions. This study adopts mixed research methods with the aid of descriptive and inferential analysis, which comprised exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for the quantitative data analysis, whilst thematic analysis was used for the qualitative data analysis. The theoretical framework was informed by Routine Activity Theory (RAT) and Fraud Management Lifecycle Theory (FMLT). The findings show that the factors contributing to the increase in e-banking fraud in Nigeria include ineffective banking operations, internal control issues, lack of customer awareness and bank staff training and education, inadequate infrastructure, presence of sophisticated technological tools in the hands of fraudsters, negligence of banks’ customers concerning their e-banking account devices, lack of compliance with the banking rules and regulations, and ineffective legal procedure and law enforcement. In addition, the enforcement of rules and regulations in relation to the prosecution of financial fraudsters has been passive in Nigeria. Moreover, the findings also show that the activities of each stage of fraud management lifecycle theory are interdependent and have a collective and considerable influence on combating e-banking fraud. The results of the findings confirm that routine activity theory is a real-world theoretical framework while applied to e-banking fraud. Also, from the analysis of the findings, this research offers a new model for e-banking fraud prevention and detection within the Nigerian banking sector. This new model confirms that to have perfect prevention and detection of e-banking fraud, there must be a presence of technological mechanisms, fraud monitoring, effective internal controls, customer complaints, whistle-blowing, surveillance mechanisms, staff-customer awareness and education, legal and judicial controls, institutional synergy mechanisms of in the banking systems. Finally, the findings from the analyses of this study have some significant implications; not only for academic researchers or scholars and accounting practitioners, but also for policymakers in the financial institutions and anti-fraud agencies in both the private and public sectors

Development of a Client-Side Evil Twin Attack Detection System for Public Wi-Fi Hotspots based on Design Science Approach

Users and providers benefit considerably from public Wi-Fi hotspots. Users receive wireless Internet access and providers draw new prospective customers. While users are able to enjoy the ease of Wi-Fi Internet hotspot networks in public more conveniently, they are more susceptible to a particular type of fraud and identify theft, referred to as evil twin attack (ETA). Through setting up an ETA, an attacker can intercept sensitive data such as passwords or credit card information by snooping into the communication links. Since the objective of free open (unencrypted) public Wi-Fi hotspots is to provide ease of accessibility and to entice customers, no security mechanisms are in place. The public’s lack of awareness of the security threat posed by free open public Wi-Fi hotspots makes this problem even more heinous. Client-side systems to help wireless users detect and protect themselves from evil twin attacks in public Wi-Fi hotspots are in great need. In this dissertation report, the author explored the problem of the need for client-side detection systems that will allow wireless users to help protect their data from evil twin attacks while using free open public Wi-Fi. The client-side evil twin attack detection system constructed as part of this dissertation linked the gap between the need for wireless security in free open public Wi-Fi hotspots and limitations in existing client-side evil twin attack detection solutions. Based on design science research (DSR) literature, Hevner’s seven guidelines of DSR, Peffer’s design science research methodology (DSRM), Gregor’s IS design theory, and Hossen & Wenyuan’s (2014) study evaluation methodology, the author developed design principles, procedures and specifications to guide the construction, implementation, and evaluation of a prototype client-side evil twin attack detection artifact. The client-side evil twin attack detection system was evaluated in a hotel public Wi-Fi environment. The goal of this research was to develop a more effective, efficient, and practical client-side detection system for wireless users to independently detect and protect themselves from mobile evil twin attacks while using free open public Wi-Fi hotspots. The experimental results showed that client-side evil twin attack detection system can effectively detect and protect users from mobile evil twin AP attacks in public Wi-Fi hotspots in various real-world scenarios despite time delay caused by many factors

Cybercrime vs Hacktivism: Do we need a differentiated regulatory approach?

Background and aims: Cybercrime is an issue that increases year on year, however rarely are the motivations behind these attacks investigated. More and more people are turning to the internet to protest with some scholars debating whether hacktivism is a social movement. This Dissertation uses networked social movement theory in order to establish if hacktivism is a social movement or whether it is simply a politically motivated form of cybercrime. While demonstrating hacktivism’s place in the social movement landscape this Dissertation will also analyse how hacktivism is currently regulated and whether the legislative and regulatory tools are appropriate. Methods: This Dissertation uses a multi-method approach to establish whether hacktivism could be considered to be a social movement. The first method used is a rhetorical analysis of the Twitter accounts from active hacktivist accounts. Tweets posted by these accounts are coded using Stewart’s functional approach to rhetoric used by social movements (1980) using MAXQDA’s content analysis software. The second method used is a descriptive statistical analysis of a number of publicly available datasets (Zone H; the Cambridge Computer Crime Database; DCMS’s Cyber Security Breaches Surveys from 2017-2021; an AnonOps Internet Relay Chat Channel; a sentiment analysis; the hack aggregator ‘Hackmageddon’) to establish hacktivism’s similarities and differences to both cybercrime and social movements. Results and Conclusions:: This Dissertation found that hacktivism is substantially different to cybercrime despite it being regulated as such based on the methods, targets and ideologies. Additionally, the Dissertation found that hacktivism could be considered to be a social movement based on similarities in their communications and motivations as well as the online parallels hacktivism has to social movement methods. The dissertation also found that due to the similarities hacktivism shares with traditional offline protests and hacktivism, the UK should look at the offline parallels when regulating hacktivism to ensure that the human rights of those taking part in hacktivist methods are not being quashed and are being upheld