Three-dimensional security framework for BYOD enabled banking institutions in Nigeria.

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.Bring your own device (BYOD) has become a trend in the present day, giving employees the freedom to bring personal mobile devices to access corporate networks. In Nigeria, most banking institutions are increasingly allowing their employees the flexibility to utilize mobile devices for work-related activities. However, as they do so, the risk of corporate data being exposed to threats increases. Hence, the study considered developing a security framework for mitigating BYOD security challenges. The study was guided by organizational, socio-technical and mobility theories in developing a conceptual framework. The study was conducted in two phases, the threat identification and the framework evaluation, using a mixed-methods approach. The main research strategies used for the threat identification were a questionnaire and interviews while closed and open-ended questions were used for the framework evaluation. A sample consisted of 380 banking employees from four banks were involved in the study. In addition, the study conducted in-depth interviews with twelve management officials from the participating banks. As for the framework evaluation, the study sampled twelve respondents to assess the developed security framework for viability as far as mitigating security threats emanating from BYOD in the banking sector is concerned. The sample consisted of eight executive managers of the bank and four academic experts in information security. Quantitative data was analysed using SPSS version 21 while qualitative data was thematically analysed. Findings from the threat identification revealed that banking institutions must develop security systems that not only identify threats associated with technical, social and mobility domains but also provide adequate mitigation of the threats. For the framework evaluation, the findings revealed that the security framework is appropriate in mitigating BYOD security threats. Based on the findings of the study, the developed security framework will help banks in Nigeria to mitigate against BYOD security threats. Furthermore, this security framework will contribute towards the generation of new knowledge in the field of information security as far as BYODs are concerned. The study recommends ongoing training for banks’ employees as it relates to mitigation of security threats posed by mobile devices

Evaluating User Perspectives of Audio Fingerprinting Technologies

Audio fingerprinting, the process by which an audio sample is automatically identified or categorized based on its unique analog properties, is a technology that has been integrated quite rapidly into commercial and consumer music applications. Although academic literature has covered specific algorithms, technical specifications of prototype applications, and practical implementations of audio fingerprinting software, little attention has been given to public opinions. However, public opinion has been debated extensively in online blogs, forums, newspapers, and e-mail lists. This study addresses this knowledge gap by examining a sample, via content analysis, of 30 web-based resources, revealing public opinions about this topic. The sample was drawn from alternative resources, as they provide a rich information source for understanding public perception and opinion about audio fingerprinting. This paper presents background research and key new findings based on this study. The content analysis identified key concepts and unifying discussion themes. The research approach and analysis was verified by two independent evaluators, confirming consistency in coding. The results revealed significant public interest in topics of audio fingerprinting metadata, and emphasized the following themes as important topics among the public: 1. user interfaces, 2. technical issues, 3. copyright implications, 4. royalties, and 5. user privacy. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations for future research

Unauthorized Practice of Law Policies in Academic Law Libraries

The purpose of this paper is the examine policies in academic law libraries related to the line between research advice and the practice of law. It contains a content analysis of policies taken from law library websites and categorizes them based on substance, length, and location. It concludes with a list of best practices for policies that protect the library from ethical or legal violations while still providing the most service possible to patrons.Master of Science in Information Scienc

On the design of a multiagent user interface for Next Generation Geographic Information System

In this thesis, a multiagent user interface architecture is designed for the Next Generation Geographic Information System(NGGIS) which supports the following advanced features: multiple users, multiple views, direct manipulation, distribution, and intelligence. In this architecture, agent is a basic functional unit. Agents cooperate with each other by exchanging messages. The User is just a special agent who communicates with any other agents. The ShowCase and its cooperative agents are specialized to present the geographic objects in different views. The WorkShop and its cooperative agents provide a complete interface to allow the user to manipulate the GIS objects directly. The Monitor is specialized to enforce the semantic constrains and control the system consistency. The Interaction Expert interprets multimedia user input and generates multimedia output by driving other agents. The Selector is a cooperative agent of both WorkShop and ShowCase which allows users to select geographic objects with specific constraints

AI Solutions for MDS: Artificial Intelligence Techniques for Misuse Detection and Localisation in Telecommunication Environments

This report considers the application of Articial Intelligence (AI) techniques to the problem of misuse detection and misuse localisation within telecommunications environments. A broad survey of techniques is provided, that covers inter alia rule based systems, model-based systems, case based reasoning, pattern matching, clustering and feature extraction, articial neural networks, genetic algorithms, arti cial immune systems, agent based systems, data mining and a variety of hybrid approaches. The report then considers the central issue of event correlation, that is at the heart of many misuse detection and localisation systems. The notion of being able to infer misuse by the correlation of individual temporally distributed events within a multiple data stream environment is explored, and a range of techniques, covering model based approaches, `programmed' AI and machine learning paradigms. It is found that, in general, correlation is best achieved via rule based approaches, but that these suffer from a number of drawbacks, such as the difculty of developing and maintaining an appropriate knowledge base, and the lack of ability to generalise from known misuses to new unseen misuses. Two distinct approaches are evident. One attempts to encode knowledge of known misuses, typically within rules, and use this to screen events. This approach cannot generally detect misuses for which it has not been programmed, i.e. it is prone to issuing false negatives. The other attempts to `learn' the features of event patterns that constitute normal behaviour, and, by observing patterns that do not match expected behaviour, detect when a misuse has occurred. This approach is prone to issuing false positives, i.e. inferring misuse from innocent patterns of behaviour that the system was not trained to recognise. Contemporary approaches are seen to favour hybridisation, often combining detection or localisation mechanisms for both abnormal and normal behaviour, the former to capture known cases of misuse, the latter to capture unknown cases. In some systems, these mechanisms even work together to update each other to increase detection rates and lower false positive rates. It is concluded that hybridisation offers the most promising future direction, but that a rule or state based component is likely to remain, being the most natural approach to the correlation of complex events. The challenge, then, is to mitigate the weaknesses of canonical programmed systems such that learning, generalisation and adaptation are more readily facilitated