Detecting semantic social engineering attacks with the weakest link: Implementation and empirical evaluation of a human-as-a-security-sensor framework

The notion that the human user is the weakest link in information security has been strongly, and, we argue, rightly contested in recent years. Here, we take a step further showing that the human user can in fact be the strongest link for detecting attacks that involve deception, such as application masquerading, spearphishing, WiFi evil twin and other types of semantic social engineering. Towards this direction, we have developed a human-as-a-security-sensor framework and a practical implementation in the form of Cogni-Sense, a Microsoft Windows prototype application, designed to allow and encourage users to actively detect and report semantic social engineering attacks against them. Experimental evaluation with 26 users of different profiles running Cogni-Sense on their personal computers for a period of 45 days has shown that human sensors can consistently outperform technical security systems. Making use of a machine learning based approach, we also show that the reliability of each report, and consequently the performance of each human sensor, can be predicted in a meaningful and practical manner. In an organisation that employs a human-as-a-security-sensor implementation, such as Cogni-Sense, an attack is considered to have been detected if at least one user has reported it. In our evaluation, a small organisation consisting only of the 26 participants of the experiment would have exhibited a missed detection rate below 10%, down from 81% if only technical security systems had been used. The results strongly point towards the need to actively involve the user not only in prevention through cyber hygiene and user-centric security design, but also in active cyber threat detection and reporting

The rise and impact of digital amnesia: why we need to protect what we no longer remember

The internet and internet-enabled devices have transformed our everyday lives and relationships. We entrust them with our precious personal information including contacts and images and rely on them to connect us to a vast repository of knowledge, anytime, anywhere. As part of its commitment to help people protect what matters most in their online-enabled world, Kaspersky Lab wanted to better understand how digital devices and the internet affect the way consumers recall and use information today – and what, if anything, they are doing to protect it. We commissioned research firm Opinion Matters to survey 6,000 consumers, aged between 16 and 55+, split equally between male and female, with 1,000 from each of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Benelux. The results suggest a direct link between data available at the click of a button and a failure to commit that data to memory. Kaspersky Lab has termed this phenomenon Digital Amnesia: the experience of forgetting information that you trust a digital device to store and remember for you

AUTOMATION HOSTAGE: HOW TO PROTECT THE INDUSTRY AGAINTS CYBER ATTACKS

Humanity depends too much on automated systems whose vulnerability could to bring the world to the disaster at any moment. All who are responsible for the operation of industrial facilities, as a rule are very serious about their security. Various means are used: barbed wire, security service, the pass office, video cameras, fire-protection systems, a Geiger counter, etc. This allows to increase the level of security of critical devices and hosts againts intruders and just idly walking citizens. Under normal circumstances, a person from the street can not get into a Nuclear power plant's control center or car factory's conveyor, because he can disrupt the technological process, arrange the economic and/or environmental catastrophe

Consumer security risks survey: from scared to aware - digital lives in 2015

Introduction In 2015, just under half (43%) the world’s population has an Internet connection: 3.2 billion people, compared to 2.9 billion in July 2014. The Internet brings communications, shopping, entertainment, news, education, work and more to anyone, anytime, anywhere and on any device. But our threat research shows that these same channels can be, and increasingly are also used by criminals, malicious attackers, terrorists and even bullies. Some are simply out to hurt, disrupt or destabilize; others are after money or identities; and a few of the most dangerous have set their sights on political or business intelligence or even critical national infrastructure such as electricity networks. In one way or another, everyone is at risk. And all those people and groups with malicious intent keep a close eye on evolving digital technology. Every new development, every new device and every new operating system is explored for vulnerabilities. They also exploit human behaviour, such as a lack of digital literacy and an innate tendency to trust. In order to better understand how Internet users across the world perceive, prepare for and are impacted by current online threats, Kaspersky Lab, together with research company B2B International, undertakes a comprehensive annual global research study. The study explores device ownership and Internet use, as well as awareness and experience of current cyberthreats

Windows , Linux And BSD

The list of the CD contents is as follows:\ud  FIGURES — Color illustrations to all chapters provided in this book\ud  LISTINGS — Source code of all examples provided in this book\ud  SRC — The source code and demo examples intended for recovering data from CD media. Its subdirectory structure is as follows: \ud • ETC — Demo examples for low-level access to CD-ROM drives\ud • RS.LIB — Libraries for low-level working with CD sectors from CloneCD and Ahead Nero and interfaces to them, with examples illustrating their practical use\ud • RS.SIMPLE — Elementary examples illustrating the principle of Reed-Solomon codes\ud • SCSI.ALT — Source code of the driver allowing executiong of the IN/OUT machine commands from the application level\ud • SCSI.LIB — Tools and utilities developed by the author for working with protected CDs\ud • XCD.EMU — A demo program illustrating the scrambling operation carried out over the data before writing them to a CD\ud  UTILITIES — Many small but helpful utilities, including the Pinch of File blockwise copier useful for file-by-file copying of CDs containing files with incorrect lengths and starting sectors\ud  README.TXT — The contents of the CD-ROMCD content with book # E4959

Conversation with Eugene Kaspersky

Eugene Kaspersky, founder and CEO of Kaspersky Lab, presents a distinctly Russian perspective on cyberwar, cyber sabotage, and cyber espionage

Improvement of intra-organizational training of personnel on the example of GBPOU SO "Irbit College of Humanities"

The master's thesis consists of introduction, two chapters, conclusion, bibliography, applications. The theoretical part presents the basic concepts of intra-organizational training of personnel, its types and forms, stages and methods. In the practical part, a general description of the enterprise under study, an analysis of the staff, is described, an analysis of internal organizational training of personnel is carried out using the example of the Irbit College of Humanities. Based on the data obtained, proposals have been developed to improve internal organizational training of personnel. In conclusion, the results are summarized in accordance with the tasks set.В работе представлены основные понятия внутриорганизационного обучения персонала, ее виды и формы, этапы и методы. В практической части описывается общая характеристика исследуемого предприятия, анализ кадрового состава, проведен анализ внутриорганизационного обучения персонала на примере ГБПОУ СО «Ирбитский гуманитарный колледж». На основе полученных данных разработаны предложения по совершенствованию внутриорганизационного обучения персонала. В заключении подведены итоги в соответствии с поставленными задачами

A Study of the Brönsted Site Acidity of Crystalline and Amorphous Aluminosilicates: 1. Desorption of Ammonia, Dehydration of 2-Propanol and Cracking of Cumene

The acidity of the H-form aluminosilicates, which include ZSM-5, mordenite, Y-faujasite, Al-containing aerosils and silica gels, and the layering of aluminosilicate compounds on an aerosil surface was measured by temperature-programmed mass spectrometry desorption (TPD) of NH 3 . It was found that the desorption energies of NH 3 decrease in the order: H-M > H-ZSM-5 > Al-aerosils> H-Y > CVD Al-silicates> Al-silica gels. The catalytic activities of the studied samples in 2-propanol dehydration and cumene cracking have been shown to decrease in the same order