Bring your own device: an overview of risk assessment

As organizations constantly strive to improve strategies for ICT management, one of the major challenges they must tackle is bring your own device (BYOD). BYOD is a term that collectively refers to the related technologies, concepts, and policies in which employees are allowed to access internal corporate IT resources, such as databases and applications, using their personal mobile devices like smartphones, laptop computers, and tablet PCs [1]. It is a side effect of the consumerization of IT, a term used to describe the growing tendency of the new information technologies to emerge first in the consumer market and then spread into business and government organizations [2]. Basically, employees want to act in an any-devices, anywhere work style, performing personal activities during work and working activities during personal time [2]. There are several risks associated with BYOD [3, p. 63], and the big gaps in BYOD policies adopted by today\u27s organizations [4, p. 194] show that the solution to BYOD is not well understood. This article establishes a background to understand BYOD risks by considering conditions that increase the occurrence of these risks and the consequences of the risks occurring. It then aims to present the most commonly adopted BYOD solutions, their limitations, and remedies, as well as important policy considerations for successfully implementing them

Cyber Security Incidents on Critical Infrastructure and Industrial Networks

National critical infrastructure and industrial processes are heavily reliant on automation, monitoring and control technologies, including the widely used Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. The growing interconnection of these systems with corporate networks exposes them to cyber attacks, with several security incidents reported over the last few decades. This study provides a classification scheme for categorising security incidents related to critical infrastructure and industrial control systems. The classification scheme is applied to analyse 242 security incidents on critical infrastructure and industrial control networks, which were reported between 1982 and 2014. The results show interesting patterns, with key points highlighted for the purpose of improving the way we plan for and direct efforts toward protecting critical infrastructure and industrial networks

Managing hydrological infrastructure assets for improved flood mitigation in coastal mega-cities of developing nations: From data-starved to data-driven approach

Abstract: Flood exposure in coastal mega-cities of developing nations within South East Asia can be assisted by data-driven management of hyrdrological infrastructure assets

Natural Hazards and Social Vulnerability of Place: The Strength-Based Approach Applied to Wollongong, Australia

Natural hazards pose significant threats to different communities and various places around the world. Failing to identify and support the most vulnerable communities is a recipe for disaster. Many studies have proposed social vulnerability indices for measuring both the sensitivity of a population to natural hazards and its ability to respond and recover from them. Existing techniques, however, have not accounted for the unique strengths that exist within different communities to help minimize disaster loss. This study proposes a more balanced approach referred to as the strength-based social vulnerability index (SSVI). The proposed SSVI technique, which is built on sound sociopsychological theories of how people act during disasters and emergencies, is applied to assess comparatively the social vulnerability of different suburbs in the Wollongong area of New South Wales, Australia. The results highlight suburbs that are highly vulnerable, and demonstrates the usefulness of the technique in improving understanding of hotspots where limited resources should be judiciously allocated to help communities improve preparedness, response, and recovery from natural hazards

Social vulnerability to natural hazards in Wollongong: comparing strength-based and traditional methods

Social vulnerability is a widely recognised way of assessing the sensitivity of a population to natural hazards and its ability to respond to and recover from them. In the traditional approach to computing social vulnerability, the emphasis is mainly on the weaknesses only (e.g. old age, low income, language barriers). This study presents a strength-based social vulnerability index that identifies the strengths that communities have that help minimise disaster risk exposure. The strength-based social vulnerability index method is compared with the traditional approach using various statistical procedures like the one-sample T-test and the Wilcoxon signed rank test. This is performed through a case study measuring the social vulnerability for the 108 suburbs of Wollongong in New South Wales. The results show there is a significant difference between the values obtained from measurements using the strength-based social vulnerability index technique and those generated by the traditional approach. The implications of the results for emergency and disaster management are broadly discussed

Investigating the accuracy of georeferenced social media data for flood mapping: The PetaJakarta.org case study

Georeferenced social media data are gaining increased application in creating near real-time flood maps needed to improve situational awareness in data-starved regions. However, there is growing concern that the georeferenced locations of flood-related social media contents do not always correspond to the actual locations of the flooding event. But to what extent is this true? Without this knowledge, it is difficult to ascertain the accuracy of flood maps created using georeferenced social media contents. This study aims to improve understanding of the extent to which georeferenced locations of social media flood reports deviate from the actual locations of floods. The study analyses flood-related tweets acquired as part of the PetaJakarta.org project implemented in the coastal mega-city of Jakarta and provides insight into the level of accuracy expected with using georeferenced social media data for flood mapping. Importantly, the results reveal that the accuracy of flood maps generated with georeferenced social media data reduces with increase in the size of the minimum mapping unit of the flood map. Finally, an approach is recommended for creating more accurate real time flood maps from crowdsourced social media data

Smart infrastructure: an emerging frontier for multidisciplinary research

The irreversible marriage between digital technology and physical urban infrastructure has given rise to the concept of smart infrastructure. The potential benefits of smart infrastructure are significant; however, their realisation will depend on society\u27s ability to address pressing issues, such as the need to develop a common language to describe terms and processes. This paper aims to lay out the foundations of such a common language. First, the authors review academic literature in order to outline key characteristics of so-called smart infrastructure systems. Importantly, the authors define and differentiate between smart and intelligent infrastructure systems. Then, the authors use an LVP framework to describe the levels (L), values (V) and principles (P) of inherently smart infrastructure systems. Finally, the authors argue that the study of smart infrastructure is a multidisciplinary field of research that reaches beyond traditional engineering and information technology disciplines. The authors expect that eliminating ambiguity and fragmentation in the definition of smart infrastructure systems will enhance research on and practice of these systems

Meta-moderation for crowdsourced disaster management and urban participatory applications

This paper presents the Enterprise Meta-moderation of Innovation (EMI) system, which was designed, developed, and deployed to drive innovation in MTR Corporation, Hong Kong. Although EMI was designed specifically for use in an organisation, the system can potentially be extended to serve other useful functions in society. Hence, an important aspect of this paper involves identifying and discussing key considerations that need to be addressed in order for such a system to be used in crowdsourced disaster management and other urban participatory applications. The study highlights the role of agent-based modelling in better addressing some of the socio-technical challenges identified

Assessing the vulnerability of pumping stations to trash blockage in coastal mega-cities of developing nations

Pumping stations are important flood mitigation infrastructure used in coastal cities to remove accumulating floodwater from low-lying areas, where drainage is naturally poor due to very low slope gradient. In coastal mega-cities situated in developing nations, these pumping stations are often vulnerable to trash blockage as a result of frequent dumping of solid waste in water bodies. Given that blocked pumps are common causes of drainage infrastructure failure, the inability to identify the most vulnerable pumping stations can lead to inefficient allocation of limited resources for preventative maintenance of the drainage system. This study proposes an approach for measuring and ranking the vulnerability of pumping stations to trash blockage. In this approach, a trash blockage vulnerability index (TBVI) is developed based on the concepts of exposure, sensitivity and resilience. Using a graph-based network analysis technique, the proposed TBVI is applied to assess and rank the vulnerability of pumping stations in one of the most representative coastal mega-cities − Jakarta, Indonesia. The results show that TBVI can point to the pumping stations that are most vulnerable to trash blockage. Such information are vital to decision makers when planning and prioritising infrastructure to be serviced or upgraded as part of flood preparedness in coastal cities

Vulnerability analysis of hydrological infrastructure to flooding in coastal cities - a graph theory approach

Hydrological infrastructure such as pumps and floodgates are invaluable assets for mitigating flooding in coastal cities. These infrastructure components are often vulnerable to damage or failure due to the impact of flood waters, thus exacerbating the flood hazards and causing significant loss of life and destruction to property worth billions of dollars. Hence, there is a growing need worldwide to enhance the understanding of flood vulnerability and to develop key metrics for assessing it. This study proposes an approach for measuring the vulnerability of hydrological infrastructure to flood damage in coastal cities. In this approach, a hydrological infrastructure flood vulnerability index (HIFVI) is developed based on exposure, sensitivity and resilience of infrastructure assets to flooding. A graph-theoretic algorithm for implementing the proposed HIFVI is presented and applied to assess the flood vulnerability of floodgates in one of the most representative coastal cities - Jakarta, Indonesia. The application involves the construction of a graph-based spatio-topological network model of Jakarta\u27s hydrological system, with floodgates represented as network nodes and waterways as edges. An analysis of the constructed network is carried out based on the underlying graph-theoretic algorithm to compute HIFVI for all nodes that represent floodgates. The results show that HIFVI can point to the most vulnerable hydrological infrastructure components and also highlight locations within coastal cities where additional infrastructure are required to improve resilience to flooding. These information are vital to decision makers when planning and prioritising infrastructure maintenance and resource allocation for flood preparedness in coastal cities