Development of a Social Engineering eXposure Index (SEXI) using Open-Source Personal Information

Millions of people willingly expose their lives via Internet technologies every day, and even the very few ones who refrain from the use of the Internet find themselves exposed through data breaches. Billions of private information records are exposed through the Internet. Marketers gather personal preferences to influence shopping behavior. Providers gather personal information to deliver enhanced services, and underground hacker networks contain repositories of immense data sets. Few users of Internet technologies have considered where their information is going or who has access to it. Even fewer are aware of how decisions made in their own lives expose significant pieces of information, which can be used by cyber hackers to harm the very organizations with whom they are affiliated. While this threat can affect any person holding any position at an organization, upper management poses a significantly higher risk due to their level of access to critical data and finances targeted by cybercrime. The goal of this research was to develop and validate a Social Engineering eXposure Index (SEXI)™ using Open-Source Personal Information (OSPI) to assist in identifying and classifying social engineering vulnerabilities. This study combined an expert panel using the Delphi method, developmental research, and quantitative data collection. The expert panel categorized and assessed information privacy components into three identifiability groups, subsequently used to develop an algorithm that formed the basis for a SEXI. Validation of the algorithm used open-source personal information found on the Internet for 50 executives of Fortune 500 organizations and 50 Hollywood celebrities. The exposure of each executive and persona was quantified and the collected data were evaluated, analyzed, and presented in an anonymous aggregated form. Phase 1 of this study developed and evaluated the SEXI benchmarking instrument via an expert panel using the Delphi expert methodology. During the first round, 3,531 data points were collected with 1,530 having to do with the demographics, qualifications, experience, and working environments of the panel members as well as 2,001 attributing levels of exposure to personal information. The second Delphi round presented the panel members with the feedback of the first-round tasking them with categorizing personal information, resulting in 1,816 data points. Phase 2 of this study used the composition, weights, and categories of personal information from Phase 1 in the development of a preliminary SEXI benchmarking instrument comprised of 105 personal information items. Simulated data was used to validate the instrument prior to the data collection. Before initiating Phase 3, the preliminary SEXI benchmarking instrument was fully tested to verify the accuracy of recorded data. Phase 3 began with discovering, evaluating, and validating repositories of publicly available data sources of personal information. Approximately two dozen sources were used to collect 11,800 data points with the SEXI benchmarking index. Upon completion of Phase 3, data analysis of the Fortune 500 executives and Hollywood personas used to validate the SEXI benchmarking index. Data analysis was conducted in Phase 3 by one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The results of the ANOVA data analysis from Phase 3 revealed that age, gender, marital status, and military/police experience were not significant in showing SEXI differences. Additionally, income, estimated worth, industry, organization position, philanthropic contributions are significant, showing differences in SEXI. The most significant differences in SEXI in this research study were found with writers and chief information officers. A t-test was performed to compare the Fortune 500 executives and the Hollywood personas. The results of the t-test data analysis showed a significant difference between the two groups in that Hollywood Personas had a higher SEXI than the Fortune 500 Executives suggesting increased exposure due to OSPI. The results of this research study established, categorized, and validated a quantifiable measurement of personal information. Moreover, the results of this research study validated that the SEXI benchmarking index could be used to assess an individual’s exposure to social engineering due to publicly available personal information. As organizations and public figures rely on Internet technologies understanding the level of personal information exposure is critical is protecting against social engineering attacks. Furthermore, assessing personal information exposure could provide an organization insight into exposed personal information facilitating further mitigation of threats or potential social engineering attack vectors. Discussions and implications for future research are provided

Small woodland owners in Rhea County, Tennessee : problem A: Characteristics of Rhea County small woodland owners and their farms : problem B: Management practices of Rhea County small woodland owners : problem C: Factors influencing woodland management practice adoption by Rhea County small woodland owners : three related special problems in lieu of thesis /

Rhea County was organized from a part of Roane County in 1809. The settlers, largely of Scotch-Irish descent, came from southwestern Virginia, upper Tennessee, and North Carolina (13).* Rhea County is. located in southeastern Tennessee, thirty-nine miles from Chattanooga. Part of the county is.in the valley and ridge region and partly on the Appalachian Plateau. The northwestern third of the county is on the Appalachian Plateau and is characterized by high lying, relatively smooth areas interspersed with deep, narrow valleys of dentrite pattern. The rocks that underlie this part of the .county are mainly sandstone (13). Rhea County has an area of approximately 217,600 acres--204,40O acres in land and 13,200 acres in water (10:1). The county was originally covered by forest predominantly hardwood or mixed hardwood and pine. About 40 percent of this land is presently cleared, most of it for crops and pasture (13:2). Large Appalachian Plateau areas and chevty ridges of the valley are cut over woodland and mostly consist of undesirable species. Many farmers in the past have considered the timber produced on this woodland mainly as a bonus and have viewed the use of approved woodland management practices as unprofitable. The population of Rhea County in 1959 was approximately 15,800 and included those living in the three incorporated towns of Dayton, Spring City, and Graysville. Fully 64 percent of the population consisted of rural non-farm, 14 percent of rural farm and 22.1 percent of urban. In 1960 the educational level for Rhea County for persons 25 years and over was 8.4 years of school compared to the state average of 8.8 (4: 10)

A Standards-Driven, Task-Based Assessment Approach for Teacher Credentialing with Potential for College Accreditation

When the Southeast Center for Teaching Quality (2003a) studied what teachers would want to tell policy makers about highly qualified teacher requirements, they summarized their findings in this quote: “Come to my classroom, and not just for a day.” (p. 2). What could be a more obvious invitation to improve and expand teacher assessment? The standardized objective tests and occasional formal observational evaluations being used to measure teacher competence today have been contested for decades as ineffective according to politicians and invalid according to researchers. While these two long-standing and useful assessment strategies are important components of an overall assessment system, neither – alone or paired – is sufficient to identify and remediate new teacher deficiencies. This article includes a series of recommendations, organized in steps, for developing an assessment approach that is task-based, standardsdriven, and job-related that would serve as a major component of a comprehensive beginning teacher assessment system. These recommendations are based on a two-year effort that resulted in Florida’s Alternative Certification Program Assessment System. This system has now been adopted by about twothirds of the Florida school districts and is beginning to be adopted by colleges of education preparing teachers through the traditional route. The design takes into account three sets of standards: the Florida requirements for program approval the NCATE requirements for accreditation, and the Standards of Educational and Psychological Testing (referred to as the Standards; AERA, APA, and NCME, 1999). These standards define the ultimate purpose of decisions about initial teacher competence: protecting the public from unqualified practitioners. Accessed 48,073 times on https://pareonline.net from June 08, 2004 to December 31, 2019. For downloads from January 1, 2020 forward, please click on the PlumX Metrics link to the right

The Effects of an Innovative Curriculum on the Attitudes of Educationally Disadvantaged Freshman College Students

Educational research literature suggests the expectations for success in college for youth from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds are tragically small. Reasons offered for this have included the lack of requisite academic preparation, lack of motivation, lack of appreciation for the value of a college education. The general purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of an innovative instructional technique in promoting the development of positive attitudes about self-worth, and academic achievement, for disadvantaged students. Specifically, this study attempted to identify the structure of attitudes of educationally disadvantaged students in the Portland State University support service program (Operation PLUS) about concepts which are related to academic skills, academic achievement and self-worth, after one year of college experience

Direct Finite First-Order Model Generation with Negative Constraint Propagation Heuristic

An Automated Finite First-Order Model Generator Has Been Developed. the Problem is Viewed as a First-Order Satisfiability Problem. Most Existing Model Generators Reduce the Problem to Propositional Satisfiability by Converting the Input First-Order Clauses into Propositional Clauses. This Generator, Unlike Others, Stores the Input First-Order Clauses and Solves the Problem Directly. It Uses an Exhaustive Backtracking Algorithm with Weight-Based Splitting. a Negative Constraint Propagation is Implemented to Reduce the Number of Decision Points and Thus to Speed Up the Search. © 1997 ACM

Spaces of null homotopic maps

Abstract. We study the null component of the space of pointed maps from B to X when is a locally nite group, and other components of the mapping space when is elementary abelian. Results about the null component are used to give a general criterion for the existence of torsion in arbitrarily high dimensions in the homotopy of X. In 1983 Haynes Miller [M] proved a conjecture of Sullivan and used it to show that if is a locally nite group and X is a simply connected nite dimensional CW-complex then the space of pointed maps from the classifying space B to X is weakly contractible, ie. Map(B;X) ’ . This result had immediate applications. Alex Zabrodsky [Z] used it to study maps between classifying space

Normalizers of tori

We determine the groups which can appear as the normalizer of a maximal torus in a connected 2-compact group. The technique depends on using ideas of Tits to give a novel description of the normalizer of the torus in a connected compact Lie group, and then showing that this description can be extended to the 2-compact case.Comment: Published by Geometry and Topology at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/gt/GTVol9/paper31.abs.htm