Business technology innovation as a precursor to information security risks

Abstract: Business technology research has often focused on value creation of platforms that leverage on execution of innovative strategies. This work espouses organizational innovation and the pursue of strategies that may at times result to unintended consequences on the security of business information systems. The organizational innovation theory is applied as a theoretical lens to explain the impact of innovation on information security. A quantitative mono-method of analysis was used to analyze data using statistical methods with a view to identify innovation constructs and testing relationships to find which had the most significant impact to the security of business information systems. The findings of the work undertaken provides useful insights to businesses by showing that constructs such as innovative design, structure and skill sets were most likely to exacerbate security risk to business information systems if these innovations were not in alignment to business goals. The importance of this research is that businesses need to take consideration of information security risks when being innovative

NSBchain: A Secure Blockchain Framework for Network Slicing Brokerage

With the advent of revolutionary technologies, such as virtualization and softwarization, a novel concept for 5G networks and beyond has been unveiled: Network Slicing. Initially driven by the research community, standardization bodies as 3GPP have embraced it as a promising solution to revolutionize the traditional mobile telecommunication market by enabling new business models opportunities. Network Slicing is envisioned to open up the telecom market to new players such as Industry Verticals, e.g. automotive, smart factories, e-health, etc. Given the large number of potential new business players, dubbed as network tenants, novel solutions are required to accommodate their needs in a cost-efficient and secure manner. In this paper, we propose NSBchain, a novel network slicing brokering (NSB) solution, which leverages on the widely adopted Blockchain technology to address the new business models needs beyond traditional network sharing agreements. NSBchain defines a new entity, the Intermediate Broker (IB), which enables Infrastructure Providers (InPs) to allocate network resources to IBs through smart contracts and IBs to assign and re-distribute their resources among tenants in a secure, automated and scalable manner. We conducted an extensive performance evaluation by means of an open-source blockchain platform that proves the feasibility of our proposed framework considering a large number of tenants and two different consensus algorithms

Conceptualising antecedents of systems innovation on information security risks

Abstract : This research represents a comprehensive conceptualisation of antecedents of systems innovation and how they affect systems innovation in an organisational context. It further examines the relationship between information security risks and systems innovation. Antecedents of systems innovation are identified based on the existing theories such as Diffusion of Innovation (DoI) and Organisational Innovation. This research makes use of new systems and technologies which include Big Data/Cloud Computing, Blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), Virtual/Augmented reality and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to examine organisations strides towards systems innovation. This research is underpinned by the increase in systems innovation and the growing concerns of information security risks faced by organisations. A quantitative method of analysis was used to analyse data using statistical methods with a view to identify relationships between variables. Data collected shows that systems and technology must have increased benefits in order to be adopted and the complexity of systems does not affect the adoption of such systems and technologies. Individual characteristics were found to have no effect in systems innovation whereas organisational and environmental elements highly influence innovation in the organisation. A relationship could not be established between systems innovation and information security risks. This research highlights the importance of ensuring that new systems and technologies adds value to the organisation and equally important is to ensure management of organisational and environmental elements that affect systems innovation. Information security risks should also not be a deterrence for systems innovation.M.Com. (Business Management