WAF-A-MoLE: An adversarial tool for assessing ML-based WAFs

Abstract Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) are plug-and-play security gateways that promise to enhance the security of a (potentially vulnerable) system with minimal cost and configuration. In recent years, machine learning-based WAFs are catching up with traditional, signature-based ones. They are competitive because they do not require predefined rules; instead, they infer their rules through a learning process. In this paper, we present WAF-A-MoLE, a WAF breaching tool. It uses guided mutational-based fuzzing to generate adversarial examples. The main applications include WAF ( i ) penetration testing, ( i i ) benchmarking and ( i i i ) hardening

Negotiating with your kids: family business succession and conflict management

Through a conceptualization of two bodies of literature, the conflict management and the family business, with this paper we aim at stimulating a debate and further research on the intersections of the two fields. We argue that scholars and researchers have not yet deepened several areas of conflict management in family businesses, and the two fields of literature are yet not well integrated. Focusing on the pivotal moment of the succession in the family business, we propose a research agenda identifying the issues and the research gaps that should be explored by researchers to reach a more integrated literature on conflict management and negotiation in family businesses

Conflict management and negotiation in family business succession: Critical Literature Review and research agenda

This paper intends to stimulate a serious debate on the topic of conflict in family businesses and the theory of negotiation as a tool to resolve these conflicts. The methodology is based on the collection and systematization of the main literature on these topics. The study results show that, despite the literature on conflict management is highly developed as well as literature on family business, scholars and researchers have not yet deepened several areas of conflict management in family businesses, so the two fields of literature are yet not well integrated. The paper then proposes a research agenda identifying the issues and research gaps that should be explored by researchers in order to reach a more mature literature on conflict resolution in family businesses

Is Small and Medium-sized Beautiful? The Structure and Evolution of Family SMEs Research

The field of scientific research on small and medium-sized family businesses has been growing exponentially and the aim of this paper is to systematise the body of knowledge to develop an agenda for the future. Adopting comparative bibliometric analyses on 155 articles (from 1989 until 2018) we provide a systematic assessment of the scientific research about small family firms, unveiling the structure and evolution of the field. Bibliographic coupling, co-citation analysis, and co-occurrence analysis are adopted to identify the most influential studies and themes. Four clusters of research are reviewed: succession in family SMEs, performances of family SMEs, internationalisation of family SMEs, and organisational culture of family SMEs. This paper contributes to the field of family SMEs by providing a systematic analysis of the scientific knowledge. Reviewing those clusters allows to providing avenues and reflections for future research and further practice

ZenHackAdemy: Ethical Hacking @ DIBRIS

Cybersecurity attacks are on the rise, and the current response is not effective enough. The need for a competent workforce, able to face attackers, is increasing. At the moment, the gap between academia and real-world skills is huge and academia cannot provide students with skills that match those of an attacker. To pass on these skills, teachers have to train students in scenarios as close as possible to real-world ones. Capture the Flag (CTF) competitions are a great tool to achieve this goal, since they encourage students to think as an attacker does, thus creating more awareness on the modalities and consequences of an attack. We describe our experience in running an educational activity on ethical hacking, which we proposed to computer science and computer engineering students. We organized seminars, outside formal classes, and provided online support on the hands-on part of the training. We delivered different types of exercises and held a final CTF competition. These activities resulted in growing a community of students and researchers interested in cybersecurity, and some of them have formed ZenHack, an official CTF team

Heart rate variability analysis during muscle fatigue due to prolonged isometric contraction

Fatigue can be defined as the muscular condition occurring before the inability to perform a task. It can be assessed through the evaluation of the median and mean frequency of the spectrum of the surface electromyography series. Previous studies investigated the relationship between heartbeat dynamics and muscular activity. However, exploitation of such cardiovascular measures to automatically identify muscle fatigue during fatiguing exercises is still missing. To this extent, HRV signals were gathered from 32 subjects during an isometric contraction task, and features defined in the time, frequency and nonlinear domains were investigated. We used surface electromyography to label the occurrence of muscle fatigue. Statistically significant differences were observed by comparing features related to fatigued subjects with the non-fatigued ones. Moreover, a pattern recognition system capable to achieve an average accuracy of 78.24% was implemented. These results confirmed the hypothesis that a relationship between heartbeat dynamics and muscle fatigue might exist

The Role of Equity Crowdfunding Campaigns in Shaping Firm Innovativeness: Evidence from Italy

Purpose This paper aims to contribute to the scientific debate concerning the impact of equity crowdfunding on the performance of crowdfunded firms after campaigning. To this aim, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the characteristics of the campaign and the subsequent firm innovativeness. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts a quantitative research approach to evaluate if the entrepreneurial choices affecting the characteristics of the equity crowdfunding campaigns have an impact on the post-campaign firm innovativeness. Findings The results of the models show that the campaign characteristics have a direct impact on the firm innovativeness, both in terms of offering and communication and the campaign performance. Originality/value This paper presents one of the first studies to investigate the relationship between the choice of campaign characteristics and the post-campaign firm innovativeness. As such, the study contributes to both the literature concerning start-up innovation and the literature about the impact of equity crowdfunding