Information security culture: An investigation into the impact of a large-scale cyberattack

Cybersecurity and cyberattack have been mentioned significantly more in the news in recent years, which has caused organisations to give higher priority to information security than ever before. Today, many organisations are vulnerable to malicious attacks like ransomware. These attacks can significantly impact an organisation's operations, especially given their reliance on technical systems. This has led to organisations emphasising technical security measures significantly, often overlooking one critical aspect of information security, namely information security culture (ISC). This empirical study examines how an organisation's ISC changes during a ransomware attack and how it has continued to change in the aftermath. We employ a case study in conjunction with a literature review to evaluate the changes in security culture. Interviews with employees from different professions in this organisation gave us their perspectives on the changes before and after the attack and their thoughts on the implemented measures. To analyse the research, the authors looked into different ISC levels and how they have specifically changed, these levels include artefacts, espoused values, shared tacit assumptions and knowledge. The study analyses how the employees and leadership perceived the changes through these levels. The research contributes to existing knowledge on information security culture by applying theory to a real-life situation and advancing the understanding of how an attack changes ISC within an organisation. By applying the theoretical framework from Van Niekerk & Von Solms, we address the empirical findings and propose measures for organisations still developing their ISC

The Impact of Energy Prices on Food Prices : A Case Study Using Norwegian Monthly Data from 2015 to 2023

This study examines the relationship between energy prices and food prices in Norway. It specifically focuses on the period following a significant spike in food prices, commonly referred to as a breakpoint, which occurred in January 2022. We also explore the effect of energy prices on wheat, meat, and rice. We find a breakpoint in energy prices in April 2020 and a breakpoint in food prices in January 2022. The empirical analysis reveals mixed results in the period before the breakpoint in January 2022. The Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and the Autoregressive (AR) model identify a significant 18-month lag effect of energy prices on food prices, while the Cochrane-Orcutt model does not show this effect. However, all three models are consistent in showing that the impact of energy prices on food prices becomes more amplified after the breakpoint in January 2022. We observe varying impacts of energy price changes across different food commodities. While wheat and rice prices increased 18 months after energy price changes, meat prices remain largely unaffected, except after the breakpoint in the food prices. Our analysis uncovers a unique trend in food price adjustments: Price increases predominantly take place in February and July, contributing to 68% of the total increase. Following the breakpoint in food prices, these two months account for an even larger share of the overall food price surge, rising to 76%.nhhma

Information security culture: An investigation into the impact of a large-scale cyberattack

Cybersecurity and cyberattack have been mentioned significantly more in the news in recent years, which has caused organisations to give higher priority to information security than ever before. Today, many organisations are vulnerable to malicious attacks like ransomware. These attacks can significantly impact an organisation's operations, especially given their reliance on technical systems. This has led to organisations emphasising technical security measures significantly, often overlooking one critical aspect of information security, namely information security culture (ISC). This empirical study examines how an organisation's ISC changes during a ransomware attack and how it has continued to change in the aftermath. We employ a case study in conjunction with a literature review to evaluate the changes in security culture. Interviews with employees from different professions in this organisation gave us their perspectives on the changes before and after the attack and their thoughts on the implemented measures. To analyse the research, the authors looked into different ISC levels and how they have specifically changed, these levels include artefacts, espoused values, shared tacit assumptions and knowledge. The study analyses how the employees and leadership perceived the changes through these levels. The research contributes to existing knowledge on information security culture by applying theory to a real-life situation and advancing the understanding of how an attack changes ISC within an organisation. By applying the theoretical framework from Van Niekerk & Von Solms, we address the empirical findings and propose measures for organisations still developing their ISC

Laparoscopic Bowel Resection: A Comparison of Three Ultrasonically Activated Devices

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: To compare resection time and collateral thermal damage of 3 currently available ultrasonically activated devices in laparoscopic small bowel surgery. METHODS: AutoSonix, SonoSurg, and UltraCision were compared in laparoscopic small bowel mesentery resection in a porcine model. A resection was defined as 12 endarcade arteries supplying the intended bowel segment. Vssels were divided 1 cm off the bowel wall. AutoSonix, SonoSurg, and UltraCision were comparable for blade length and type, cutting mechanism, handle ergonomics, and vibration amplitude, but not well matched for vibration frequency (55.5;23.5;55.5 kHz), working shaft diameter (5;11;10 mm) and length (29;33;34 cm), respectively. A sample size of 114 was calculated to detect a 25% difference with 90% power at a 5% significance level. Resections were allocated to devices by block randomization. Analysis of variance and pairwise Scheffe tests were used for multiple comparisons, and a Kaplan-Meier plot was drawn to confirm differences in resection time with each device. A pathologist blind to the devices evaluated bowel wall biopsies for thermal damage. RESULTS: Procedures as allocated comprised 114 resections (38 with each device). UltraCision median resection time of 5160 (range 2340-7860) seconds was significantly longer (P=0.0001). The difference in resection time between AutoSonix (median 3420, range 1860-8760 s) and SonoSurg (median 3660, range 1800-6900 s) did not reach statistical significance. A microscopy revealed no thermal damage. CONCLUSIONS: Laparoscopic resection time for porcine bowel mesentery was shorter with AutoSonix or SonoSurg than with UltraCision, and no thermal damage to the bowel wall was found

Verdsettelse av Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA

Master's thesis in Accounting and auditingDenne masteroppgaven er en fundamental verdsettelse av Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA, heretter omtalt som Norwegian. Formålet med oppgaven er å estimere markedsverdien av Norwegian per 25.02.2019 med bakgrunn i selskapets underliggende økonomiske forhold. For å kunne gi en kjøp-, hold- eller salgs-anbefaling per 25.02.2019. Den fundamentale verdsettelsen vil suppleres av en komparativ verdsettelse for å vurdere rimeligheten av vårt estimat. Utredningen starte med en presentasjon av Norwegian, flybransjen og komparative selskapene. Videre for å få innsikt i de underliggende økonomiske forhold er det gjennomført en strategisk regnskapsanalyse. Den strategiske analysen ga innsikt i eksterne og interne forhold, for å estimere om Norwegian besitter eller vil besitte en strategisk fordel. Her konkluderte vi med at Norwegian vil ha en fremtidig strategisk fordel med sin langdistanse-strategi. Regnskapsanalysen ga informasjon på Norwegian sin historiske rentabilitet og risiko, sett opp mot bransjegjennomsnittet. Fra resultatene fremkom det at Norwegian har betydelig finansiell risiko og hadde negativ superrentabilitet på -95%, der driftsulempen var på hele -132%. Innsikten fra den strategiske regnskapsanalysen ble videre anvendt til å utarbeide fremtidskravene og budsjettdriverne som sammen utgjør fremtidsregnskapet. Der budsjettperioden gikk fra år 2019-2028. For å estimere verdiestimat på bakgrunn av fundamental verdsettelse benyttet vi både egenkapital- og selskapskapitalmetoden. Gjennomsnittlig verdiestimatet ble kr 109 per aksje, som ble nedjustert på grunn av konkursrisiko til kr 106 per aksje. Simulering og sensitivitetsanalyse avdekket videre betydelig usikkerhet med vårt verdiestimat. Videre ble det gjennomførte en komparativ verdsettelse for å supplere vårt verdiestimat. Fra den komparative verdsettelsen ble det estimert at markedsverdien var kr 11.2 milliarder som gir et verdiestimat på kr 82,5 per aksje. Avslutningsvis vektet vi komparative verdsettelsen med den fundamentale verdsettelsen og det endelige verdiestimatet ble kr 97 per aksje som gir en markedsverdi på kr 13,2 milliarder. Aksjekursen per 25.02.2019 var kr 58,8. Handelsstrategien vår blir dermed en kjøp-anbefaling

Covalent antibody display—an in vitro antibody-DNA library selection system

The endonuclease P2A initiates the DNA replication of the bacteriophage P2 by making a covalent bond with its own phosphate backbone. This enzyme has now been exploited as a new in vitro display tool for antibody fragments. We have constructed genetic fusions of P2A with single-chain antibodies (scFvs). Linear DNA of these fusion proteins were processed in an in vitro coupled transcription–translation mixture of Escherichia coli S30 lysate. Complexes of scFv–P2A fusion proteins covalently bound to their own DNA were isolated after panning on immobilized antigen, and the enriched DNAs were recovered by PCR and prepared for the subsequent cycles of panning. We have demonstrated the enrichment of scFvs from spiked libraries and the specific selection of different anti-tetanus toxoid scFvs from a V-gene library with 50 million different members prepared from human lymphocytes. This covalent antibody display technology offers a complete in vitro selection system based exclusively on DNA–protein complexes

Gestión de riesgos para el desarrollo de proyectos de sistemas críticos

Today we can find different critical systems in different fields such as health, military, space, security, etc., where the lives and economy of many people are in danger due to the consequences that may arise from a failure in these systems. For this reason, it is essential to identify, analyze and treat the risks related to critical systems projects and typical risk management processes. In this article, we show and explore different techniques and models applied in different environments, such as medicine and the military field, recognizing concepts and similarities in critical systems and risk management. Finally, determining that there are no defined methodologies for risk management in these systems, in many cases necessary to apply hybrid and dynamic options.Hoy en día podemos encontrar distintos sistemas críticos en diferentes campos como en la salud, militar, espacial, seguridad, etc., dónde peligra la vida y economía de muchas personas debido a las consecuencias que pueden surgir de alguna falla en estos sistemas. Por ello es importante identificar, analizar y tratar los riesgos relacionados a los proyectos de sistemas críticos, procesos típicos de la gestión de riesgos. En este artículo mostramos y analizamos distintas técnicas y modelos aplicados en diferentes ámbitos como la medicina y el campo militar, reconociendo conceptos y similitudes sobre los sistemas críticos y la gestión de riesgos. Finalmente determinando que no existen metodologías definidas para la gestión de riesgos en estos sistemas, siendo en muchos casos necesaria la aplicación de opciones hibridas y dinámicas

Modelo de clasificación de depresión en Tweets usando BERT

Today there are many signs of depression, as well as many suicide attempts caused by this emotional disorder, and this is reflected mostly on social networks, mainly on Twitter. For this reason, it is important for specialists and organizations seeking to safeguard people's lives to use software tools to address this problem. For this, in this work a web tool called "UBDevs-Depression-Classifier" is proposed,  that allows you to automatically obtain and classify tweets for a specific topic. A greater emphasis was placed on tweets related to COVID-19in the years 2020-2021 the world experienced a pandemic that increased cases of depression in many places. This research proposal focuses on the use of a model based on NLP (Natural Language Processing) for the classification of Tweets in order to find those that incite depression or imply that users are in a bad mood, all this in order to maintain the mental and physical health of the users of this platform. There are several models that are used as a basis for NLP projects, however, at present BERT has proven to be one of the most efficient, so we selected it for the development of our proposal. To evaluate the efficiency of the project we applied the F1 metric obtaining a value of 0.8806, a quite acceptable result with respect to a textual classification.Hoy en día existen muchos indicios de depresión, así como muchos intentos de suicidio causados por este trastorno emocional, esto se ve reflejado mayormente en redes sociales principalmente en Twitter. Por ello, es importante que los especialistas y organizaciones que busquen salvaguardar la vida de las personas, utilicen herramientas de software que permitan abordar este problema. Para ello, en este trabajo se propone una herramienta web llamada “UBDevs-Depression-Classifier” que permite clasificar y obtener tweets de forma automática por algún tema específico. Se puso un mayor énfasis a tweets relacionados con el COVID-19 debido a que en los años 2020-2021 en el mundo se vivió una pandemia que incrementó los casos de depresión en muchos lugares. Esta propuesta de investigación se centra en la utilización en un modelo basado en NLP (Natural Language Processing) para la clasificación de Tweets con el fin de encontrar aquellos que inciten a la depresión o den a entender que los usuarios se encuentren en un mal estado de ánimo, todo ello con el fin de mantener la salud mental y física de los usuarios de esta plataforma. Existen varios modelos usados como base para proyectos de NLP, sin embargo, en la actualidad BERT ha demostrado ser uno de los más eficientes por ello lo seleccionamos para el desarrollo de nuestra propuesta. Para evaluar la eficiencia del proyecto aplicamos la métrica F1 obteniendo un valor de 0.8806, resultado bastante aceptable respecto a una clasificación textual