Users’ perception on the information security policy of the institutions of higher learning

Securing information is essential for safeguarding the organization business operations as information is a business asset to any organization including education sector.One of the most imperative information security (InfoSec) controls identified is InfoSec policy, a direction-giving document.The purpose of this study is to investigate the user awareness, understanding and acceptance of InfoSec policy in the Malaysian’s Institutes of Higher Learning.Survey questionnaires had been distributed to graduate students and non-IT staff of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM),International Campus, Kuala Lumpur.The result of this study had perceived consistent agreeable behaviors of the InfoSec policy within UTM

Deliver security awareness training, then repeat:{deliver; measure efficacy}

Organisational information security policy contents are disseminated by awareness and training drives. Its success is usually judged based on immediate post-training self-reports which are usually subject to social desirability bias. Such self-reports are generally positive, but they cannot act as a proxy for actual subsequent behaviours.This study aims to formulate and test a more comprehensive way of measuring the efficacy of these awareness and training drives, called ASTUTE. We commenced by delivering security training. We then assessed security awareness (post-training), and followed up by measuring actual behaviours. When we measured actual behaviours after a single delivery of security awareness training, the conversion from intention to behaviour was half of the desired 100%. We then proceeded to deliver the training again, another two times.The repeated training significantly reduced the gap between self-reported intention and actual secure behaviours

Introduction to Security Onion

Security Onion is a Network Security Manager (NSM) platform that provides multiple Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) including Host IDS (HIDS) and Network IDS (NIDS). Many types of data can be acquired using Security Onion for analysis. This includes data related to: Host, Network, Session, Asset, Alert and Protocols. Security Onion can be implemented as a standalone deployment with server and sensor included or with a master server and multiple sensors allowing for the system to be scaled as required. Many interfaces and tools are available for management of the system and analysis of data such as Sguil, Snorby, Squert and Enterprise Log Search and Archive (ELSA). These interfaces can be used for analysis of alerts and captured events and then can be further exported for analysis in Network Forensic Analysis Tools (NFAT) such as NetworkMiner, CapME or Xplico. The Security Onion platform also provides various methods of management such as Secure SHell (SSH) for management of server and sensors and Web client remote access. All of this with the ability to replay and analyse example malicious traffic makes the Security Onion a suitable low cost alternative for Network Security Management. In this paper, we have a feature and functionality review for the Security Onion in terms of: types of data, configuration, interface, tools and system management

Cyberterrorism: the story so far

This paper is concerned with the origins and development of the concept of cyberterrorism. It seeks to excavate the story of the concept through an analysis of both popular/media renditions of the term and scholarly attempts to define the borders of same. The contention here is not that cyberterrorism cannot happen or will not happen, but that, contrary to popular perception, it has not happened yet

The Australian Cyber Security Centre threat report 2015

Introduction: The number, type and sophistication of cyber security threats to Australia and Australians are increasing. Due to the varied nature of motivations for cyber adversaries targeting Australian organisations, organisations could be a target for malicious activities even if they do not think the information held on their networks is valuable, or that their business would be of interest to cyber adversaries. This first unclassified report by the ACSC describes the range of cyber adversaries targeting Australian networks, explains their motivations, the malicious activities they are conducting and their impact, and provides specific examples of activity targeting Australian networks during 2014. This report also offers mitigation advice on how organisations can defend against these activities. The ACSC’s ability to detect and defend against sophisticated cyber threats continues to improve. But cyber adversaries are constantly improving their tradecraft in their attempts to defeat our network defences and exploit the new technologies we embrace. There are gaps in our understanding of the extent and nature of malicious activity, particularly against the business sector. The ACSC is reaching out to industry to build partnerships to improve our collective understanding. Future iterations of the Threat Report will benefit from these partnerships and help to close gaps in our knowledge

A revised framework of information security principles

Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability are referred to as the basic principles of Information Security. These principles have remained virtually un-changed over time, but several authors argue they are clearly insufficient to pro-tect information. Others go a step further and propose new security principles, to update and complement the traditional ones. Prompt by this context, the aim of this work is to revise the framework of Information Security principles, making it more current, complete, and comprehensive. Based on a systematic literature re-view, a set of Information Security principles is identified, defined and character-ized, which, subsequently, leads to a proposal of a Revised Framework of Infor-mation Security Principles. This framework was evaluated in terms of completeness and wholeness by intersecting it with a catalog of threats, which re-sulted from the merger of four existing catalogs. An initial set of security metrics, applied directly to the principles that constitute the framework, is also suggested, allowing, in case of adverse events, to assess the extent to which each principle was compromised and to evaluate the global effectiveness of the information pro-tection efforts.Programa Operacional Fatores de Competitividade – COMPETE and National funds by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia under Project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-022674