Since its beginnings in 1974, the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network has grown into one of the largest, safest, and most efficient payment systems in the world. An ACH transaction is an electronic funds transfer between bank accounts using a batch processing system. Currently, the ACH Network moves almost $43 trillion and 25 billion electronic financial transactions each year. With the increasing movement toward an electronic, interconnected and mobile infrastructure, it is critical that electronic payments work safely and efficiently for all users. ACH transactions carry sensitive data, such as a consumer's name, account number, tax identification number, account holder name, address, or social security number. ACH fraud consists of the theft of funds through the Automated Clearing House financial transaction network (Accounts Receivable & Order-to-Cash Network, 2012). If the transactions are intercepted by fraudulent activities, either during transit or during rest, the sensitive customer data can be used to steal the transferred funds, which can cause financial and reputational damage to ACH network participants and consumers. Even though the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA) requires ACH participants to use commercially reasonable encryption and authentication procedures, the risks associated with employee error or negligence, physical theft, and insider theft of data remain substantial. The ACH network that handles 40 billion transactions annually has consumer and corporate financial information. As the ACH network emerges as a prominent payment channel, proactive steps must be taken to guarantee consumer safety. The primary research question “How can opportunities to commit ACH fraud by insiders be inhibited by masking sensitive data in the ACH transactions life cycle?” is addressed employing design science research methodology with special focus on this specific question: Will use of Multi-step tokens in life cycle of ACH transactions lower the risk of sensitive data exposure? To demonstrate the extent to which the Multi-step tokens in the life cycle of ACH transactions lower the risk of sensitive data exposure, the following two sub-questions will be answered: • How to model and simulate sensitive data exposure risk in current ACH transaction life cycle? • How to model and simulate sensitive data exposure risk in the multi-step tokenized ACH transaction life cycle? The research findings through proof of concept simulations confirm that sensitive consumer personal identifiable information shared in ACH network can be made more secure from insider threat opportunities by multi-step tokenization of ACH data. In the to-be system, the real account number will not be used to post the actual financial transaction. Only tokenized account number will be used by RDFI (Receiving Depository Financial Institution) to post the financial transaction. Even if the ODFI (Originating Depository Financial Institution) initiate the financial transaction using real account number, RDFI will reject the transaction back to the originator to resend the transaction using the token value. For the same account number, RDFI will have different token values based on SEC (Standard Entry Class) code, origin, ODFI, transaction type etc. The account token value will be generated only if ODFI sends a token request separately to RDFI in a multi-step manner. The research findings suggest that multi-step tokenization can be used to generate and validate unique transaction path as a function of the transaction origin number, originating depository financial institution, Standard Entry class, Receiving depository financial institution and account number. Even if the account or token value gets misplaced, the data will be of no use to the person having the information. The cipher can be further strengthened by including additional unique ACH data elements. The findings stem from proof of concept development and testing of conceptual, empirical and simulated models of current ACH network, insider breach scenarios, and multi-step tokenized systems. The study findings were augmented by running different model scenarios and comparing the outputs for breaches, network traffic and costs. The study findings conclude with an implementation proposal of the findings in the ACH network and opportunities for further research on the topic.

The successful design, implementation, deployment, and use of mobile software applications is rare. While many mobile apps are developed, few succeed. This design science research project builds and evaluates CrashApp™, a mobile application that connects lawyers and clients before, during, and after car accidents. The effective, widespread use of this app depends on satisfying the needs of three groups of stakeholders – the end-users (clients), the owners (lawyers), and the software developers. The research objective is to investigate the key differences among the three stakeholder groups on evaluation criteria for mobile app success. Evaluation strategies and methods are selected to collect data that measures each group’s satisfaction with the constructed application artefact. Research contributions are the identification of multiple stakeholder groups and the ability to design rich evaluation strategies that provide measures of application success. Practice contributions are the design and development of a useful mobile app that provides needed services to the client and effective client connections for the law firm to interact with the clients. The project produced an instantiation of the design artefact CrashApp™ mobile application, which was evaluated with a naturalistic evaluation approach, including the following methods and techniques: focus groups, focused surveys, usability surveys, and real life tests and assessments.

Abstract In recent years the number of attacks on critical infrastructure has not only increased substantially but such attacks have also shown higher sophistication. With the increasing interconnection of information systems it is common that critical systems communicate and share information outside an organization’s networks for many different scenarios. In the academic world as well as in existing security implementations, focus is placed on individual aspects of the security process - for example, network security, legal and regulatory compliance and privacy - without considering the process on the whole. This work focuses on solving this security gap of critical infrastructure by providing solutions for emerging attack vectors. Using design science research methods, a model was developed that seeks to combine these individual security aspects to form a complete security management process (SMP). This SMP introduces, among others theories of security topics, recommended best practices and a security organization structure. An instantiation of the SMP model was implemented for a large-scale critical infrastructure. This work introduces the system developed, its architecture, personnel hierarchy and security relevant workflows. Due to employed surveillance networks, specialized requirements for bandwidth utilization while preserving data security were present. Thus algorithms for solving these requirements are introduced as sub-constructs. Other focus points are the managerial aspects of sensors deployed in surveillance networks and the automatic processing of the sensor data to perform data fusion. Algorithms for both tasks were developed for the specific system but could be generalized for other instantiations. Verification was performed by empirical studies of the instantiation in two separate steps. First the instantiation of the SMP was analyzed as a whole. One of the main quality factors of the instantiation is incident response time, especially in complex scenarios. Consequently measurements of response times when handling incidents compared to the traditional system were performed in different scenarios. System usability was then verified by user acceptance tests of operators and administrators. Both studies indicate significant improvements compared to traditional security systems. Secondly, the sub-constructs communication optimizations and the data fusion algorithm were verified showing substantial improvements in their corresponding areas. / Tiivistelmä Viime vuosina kriittisiin infrastruktuureihin on kohdistunut merkittävästi aiempaa enemmän erilaisia hyökkäyksiä. Tietojärjestelmien välisten yhteyksien lisääntymisen myötä myös kriittiset järjestelmät kommunikoivat nykyään keskenään ja jakavat tietoa organisaation sisäisten verkkojen ulkopuolellekin. Akateemisessa tutkimuksessa ja turvajärjestelmien toteutuksissa on huomio kohdistettu turvallisuutta koskevien prosessien yksittäisiin piirteisiin, kuten esimerkiksi verkkojen turvallisuuteen, lakien ja sääntöjen noudattamiseen ja yksityisyyteen, miettimättä prosesseja kokonaisuutena. Väitöstutkimuksen tavoitteena on ollut ratkaista tämä kriittisten infrastruktuurien turvallisuusongelma tarjoamalla ratkaisuja, jotka paljastavat mahdollisia hyökkäysreittejä. Väitöstutkimuksessa kehitettiin suunnittelutieteellisen tutkimuksen avulla lähestymistapa, joka yhdistää yksittäiset turvallisuusnäkökohdat ja muodostaa näin turvallisuuden kokonaishallinnan prosessin mallin. Malli hyödyntää erilaisia turvallisuusteorioita, suositeltuja hyviä käytäntöjä ja turvallisen organisaation rakennemalleja. Mallista kehitettiin esimerkkitoteutus laajamittaista kriittistä infrastruktuuria varten. Tämä väitöskirja esittelee kehitetyn järjestelmän, sen arkkitehtuurin, henkilökuntahierarkian ja turvallisuuden kannalta relevantit työnkulkukaaviot. Työssä huomioitiin laajan valvontaverkoston edellyttämät erityisvaatimukset tilanteessa, jossa tietoturvallisuuden säilyttäminen oli tärkeää. Myös näiden erityisvaatimuksiin liittyvien mallin osien ratkaisualgoritmit esitetään. Muita työn tuotoksia ovat hallinnolliset näkökulmat, jotka on huomioitava, kun valvonnalle tärkeitä sensoreita hallinnoidaan ja sensorien tuottamaa dataa yhdistellään. Algoritmit luotiin esimerkkiympäristöön, mutta niitä on mahdollista soveltaa muihinkin toteutuksiin. Toteutuksen oikeellisuuden todentamisessa käytettiin empiirisiä ympäristöjä kahdessa eri vaiheessa. Ensiksi turvallisuusprosessin kokonaishallinnan malli analysoitiin kokonaisuutena. Merkittävä laatutekijä oli havaintotapahtuman vasteaika erityisesti monimutkaisissa skenaarioissa. Siksi työssä esitellään eri skenaarioiden avulla tapahtumanhallinnan vasteaikojen mittauksia suhteessa perinteisiin järjestelmiin. Tämän jälkeen järjestelmän käytettävyys todennettiin operaattorien ja hallintohenkilöstön kanssa tehtyjen hyväksymistestien avulla. Testit osoittivat huomattavaa parannusta verrattuna perinteisiin turvajärjestelmiin. Toiseksi verifiointiin mallin osien kommunikaation optimointi ja algoritmien toimivuus erikseen ja niissäkin ilmeni huomattavia parannuksia perinteisiin järjestelmiin verrattuna.

運動依從性在健康管理議題裡是非常重要的一環，現在的人經常感到身體不適而診斷結果卻正常，這種現象根據世界衛生組織的定義為「亞健康」或「健康的灰色地帶」。在高壓的工作環境或不正常的生活作息下，最容易有這些徵狀，儘管大家都知道長期規律的運動可以促進健康，實際實行的狀況卻不如預期的好。為了改善此狀況，本研究透過蘋果公司的套件(ResearchKit)開發行動應用程式來幫助使用者增加運動依從性。此套件內建許多模組供開發者與研究人員使用，如聲明宣告與問卷模組等，讓整個研究、開發流程更為快速有效。本研究流程遵行設計科學方法論來創造一個設計實體，即為本研究開發的應用程式「Active Track」。 在設計階段，本研究採用了「說服設計準則」中的「Tailoring」與「Reminder」設計方法，意圖強化、形塑甚或改變使用者對於目標行為的態度，透過本應用程式來激勵使用者改變自身行為，達到目標設定。目前市面上許多健康管理的應用程式皆已證實個性與說服科技之間的相關性，因此本研究採用了MBTI適性分析工具並設計出相對應的激勵文字訊息，期望透過此設計實體來協助使用者增加運動依從性。 在第一階段的實驗評估，我們於166個下載人次當中篩選出87個有效樣本來比較樣本之間的表現，其中有54人有接收激勵文字訊息，33人則無。平均而言，那些有收到激勵文字訊息的受測者，完成率較沒有收到激勵文字訊息的受試者高出百分之十五。然而在訊息類型與個性是否相符的比較實驗當中，訊息符合與不符合使用者個性的結果之間並無顯著差異。本研究之結果僅顯示出透過激勵文字訊息可以有效督促使用者完成運動目標。在第二階段的實驗中加入了「訊息重複性」、「回饋機制」因子來改良應用程式，研究結果顯示訊息的重複整體而言可以提升百分之二十三的完成率，其中適性結果為「理性」的受測者則有百分之二十七的提升，然而回饋機制設計在本研究並無統計顯著。 在兩階段的設計循環下，本研究證實透過Active Track重複地傳送激勵文字訊息可以協助使用者增加運動依從性，進而降低罹患疾病的風險，研究結果對於未來說服系統之開發以及其他醫療領域提升依從性之相關研究也提供了良好的參考價值。 / Adherence to an exercise schedule is valuable for health management. Nowadays, most people have experienced uncomfortable feelings but diagnostic data are normal. The phenomenon is called ‘sub-health’ condition, which is a state between health and disease. People are likely to experience discomfort if their working environment is stressful and their lifestyle is unhealthy. Therefore, a long period of commitment to adhere to physical activity programs is beneficial for people’s health. Although people would benefit from support to increase exercise compliance, adherence to physical activity plans is often very low. To address these shortcomings, this paper introduces a low-cost method–an iOS application developed using Apple Inc.’s ResearchKit–to help people adhere to their physical activity plans. ResearchKit provides various modules such as consent declaration and survey task for helping researchers create a research app more efficiently. We applied design science methodology to create a design artifact, namely Active Track. By including the “Tailoring” and the “Reminder” persuasive principles in Active Track to develop, strengthen, or change attitudes or behaviors, the design artifact can act as support instruments that stimulate and encourage users to comply with target behavior. Because studies of health-promotion apps have identified the correlations between personality and persuasive technology, we used the Myer–Briggs Type Indicator personality assessment to design motivational messages for each type of personality as a text reminder in Active Track. In the first evaluation stage of Active Track, we identified 87 valid participants (54 with motivational messages and 33 without motivational messages) from 166 downloads for performance comparison. On average, the completion rates of participants who were presented with motivational messages were 15% higher, but the difference in message matching experiment was not significant. The results demonstrated that our design approach is able to improve adherence on exercise plans by providing users with motivated messages. Therefore, we implemented repetitiveness and feedback intervention in a further design iteration and evaluated the improvement in Active Track by using these two new factors. The results showed that the repetitiveness factor enhanced the completion rate by approximately 23%; in particular, participants who were identified as having Thinking-type MBTI personalities exhibited an improvement of approximately 27% due to repetitive messages. However, feedback information had no significant effect on adherence. In summary, the findings of this study confirmed that Active Track can help individuals to improve their exercise adherence through repetitive motivational messages, reduce the risk of diseases, and provide useful insights for the future development of persuasive systems and studies into adherence enhancement for health care.

Within the majority of learners' years in high school, bullying is one common experience that pervades those years of transitioning to adulthood. The bullying phenomenon has been studied over a few decades and we have basically come to understand that bullying is any situation where a perpetrator, over a period, continually behaves aggressively towards another individual who cannot defend themselves; here an imbalance of power is accentuated. This has been studied in recent years with the increasing reports of fatalities among high school learners who have resorted to suicide and self-harm as a solution. In the current digital age, the extent of bullying is faster and reaches further, and as such, more dynamics seem to be involved in the mix. The role of technology in improving the way we live and do things has also extended to the way crimes and injustice are being meted out in society. Youths and adolescents, particularly high school learners have been noted to have a phenomenal adoption of technology. They are also noted to increasingly acquire the most updated mobile technology devices and are therefore a fit sample for examining mobile bullying. In addition, more studies are finding out distinct classifications such as bully, victim and bully-victims, with the bully-victim studies just beginning to gain attention. As with the more familiar traditional bullying, fundamental psychological, social and economic factors largely predict the exhibiting of bully-victim characteristics. Some studies have found that the consequences are, however, more severe within the group but not without some inconsistencies in findings; hence the need to investigate and begin to proffer the right interventions or solutions. This current study set out to investigate characteristics of female mobile bully-victim behaviours amidst claims that they are a minority and so no special attention need be given to them. A pilot study, conducted by this researcher, examining the bully-victim subgroup from previous cyberbullying research studies (Kabiawu & Kyobe, 2016), found the group exists and is fast gaining more popularity in research. Further examination of literature found the discourse around age factor in prevalence, with gender variances, interventions, and country differences, among others. Many of the past studies on gender variance enquiries were conflicting, interventions were largely not technology-oriented, and studies were mostly from outside the continent of Africa. This stirred up the interest in studying female mobile bully-victims in South African high school students and the exploration of a general (i.e. non-gender-specific) technical intervention. The study followed a pragmatic philosophy and mixed method in collecting and analyzing the data. The study was carried out in Cape Town, South Africa; eight schools agreed to participate in the survey, and 2632 responses were collected from a range of schools (consisting both public and independent schools). Of these, 911 were females and 199 bully-victims, placing the group in a minority position. This maintained the keen interest in understanding the issues that face them rather than overlooking the subgroup as some studies would argue. Additionally, the study vii entailed the development of an IT artefact in the form of a mobile application, called “The BullsEye!” through a Design Science process. The aim of the artefact was to proffer a technical intervention and observe the usefulness of the artefact in dealing with general bullying as well as for addressing, mitigating and providing support for bullying. The study collected information quantitatively to explore the differences in age, school grade, type of school, family type, ethnicity and perceptions of interventions from students. This process was also used to recruit interested students in designing the mobile app intervention to address the secondary aspect of the research. The study predicted that at different ages and school grades, female mobile bullyvictim behaviours would be different. It also proposed that these behaviours exhibited by bully-victims would differ when the school type, ethnicity and family from which students come, are compared. When interventions by teachers, family and friends were compared, the study predicted that the female bully-victim behaviours exhibited would not be same, depending on the perception of the level of intervention the students received. These hypotheses were tested empirically using quantitative methods to check the analysis of the variance of the mean scores of the collected data. The results of the analysis of variance showed findings that resulted in some partial and some strong acceptance of the hypotheses. As expected, there were age and grade differences observed among the behaviours of the female bully-victims surveyed. The younger in age and grade these students were, the more of the behaviours were found to be exhibited by them. Students from conventional families with two parents were expected to exhibit fewer female bully-victim characteristics, but this was not necessarily the finding in the study and inconsistent with most previous studies. The prediction on ethnicity was also partially accepted due to mixed indications according to findings. Establishing the respondents' ethnicity showed a group of students who did not wish to reveal their ethnicity but were rife in bully-victim behaviour via phone calls, email and SMS's. This raised a question of whether their societal status affected their behaviour. The type of school was also found not to accurately predict female bully-victim behaviours in this study as expected or in accordance to majority of existing literature. There was, however, evidence of a distinct social media mechanism of bullying/victimization peculiar to an Independent school in relation to other schools. The prediction on interventions, while being partially supported, provided a useful insight into strengthening the need to appreciate and continually invest in the quality of interventions provided to address mobile bullying. Generally, the findings revealed that female mobile bully victims had significantly higher experience of being victims (i.e. had been bullied) than those who were not. This may be due to failings in the provision for reporting issues or the way reports are being handled, which is another useful insight into interventions. The artefact designed as an intervention in this study also showed high acceptance of the app. This can be attributed to the fact that the design process followed a methodology that is grounded in practice and in the body of knowledge. This was embellished by emerging methodologies of involving the intended users, though schoolchildren, in the evolution of the artefact design. The implication of these findings is that there may be current frameworks addressing female mobile bully-victim behaviour at school and family levels; however, focus of interventions should be on teaching the right culture with regards to mobile phone use. This gives credence to the second objective of this study, which was to design a digital intervention. The artefact was designed to empower victims and bystanders, the purpose of which seemed to have been achieved with a high rate of approval for the app. The knowledge gained from this phase, despite the limitations, points that visual appeal is important when designing for high school students. It also showed that students are interested in learning in an environment free of adult presence or supervision. However, many more strategies and principles can be applied to intervene from different perspectives to create a more wholistic solution. This knowledge is useful for future works that seek to include their input in design process. The understanding of these characteristic mechanisms is important in proffering relevant interventions as the distinct female bully-victim group is newly gaining attention. This is useful in theory development, especially feminist theories on violence as well as where and how to target interventions. This impacts practice in terms of knowledge of how female mobile bully-victims operate and how one can begin to empower them to protect themselves and reflect on their online and mobile phone behaviour. Therefore, for Information Systems practice, this study provides a worthwhile contribution, especially in answering questions such as, what information systems and interventions should be developed and how to maximize such systems for their intended learning purposes. From the lessons learned in this study, the research also contributes by proposing considerations for future and further research.

No description available.

This research studies the three market-leading RPA-tools, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism and UiPath, in order to fill the lack of literature regarding methods for evaluating and comparing RPA-tools. Design science research was performed by designing and creating artefacts in the form of process implementations and an evaluative model. A typical process representing a common area of use was implemented using each of the three RPA-tools, in order to create an evaluative model. Official documentation, along with the three implementations, were studied. Evaluative questions specific to RPA-tool evaluation were created based on a quality model for product quality found in the ISO/IEC 25010 standard. Characteristics dependant on organisational context were not included in the evaluation, in order to create an evaluative model which is not dependant on any specific business environment. The results of the research provide knowledge of (1) how RPA-tools can be implemented and (2) the differences that exist between the three market-leading RPA tools. The research also contributes in the form of a method for investigating and evaluating the RPA-tools. When creating the evaluative model, some of the criteria found in the ISO/IEC 25010 quality model were concluded to be of low relevance and, therefore, not included in the model. By analysing and evaluating the created evaluative model, using a theoretical concept of digital resources and their evaluation, the validity of the evaluative model was reinforced. From an evaluative perspective, this research emphasises the need to appropriate and change existing evaluative methods in order to successfully evaluate the most relevant characteristics of RPA-tools. / Denna forskning studerar de tre marknadsledande RPA-verktygen, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism och UiPath, för att fylla bristen på litteratur om metoder för utvärdering och jämförelse av RPA-verktyg. Design science research genomfördes genom att utforma och skapa artefakter i form av processimplementeringar och en utvärderingsmodell. En typisk process som representerar ett vanligt användningsområde implementerades med användning av vart och ett av de tre RPA-verktygen för att skapa en utvärderingsmodell. Officiell dokumentation, tillsammans med de tre implementeringarna, studerades. Utvärder-ingsfrågor specifika för RPA-verktygsutvärdering skapades baserat på en kvalitetsmodell för produktkvalitet som finns i ISO/IEC 25010-standarden. Egenskaper som är beroende av organisatoriskt sammanhang ingick inte i utvärderingen för att skapa en utvärderingsmodell som inte är beroende av någon specifik affärsmiljö. Resultaten av forskningen ger kunskap om (1) hur RPA-verktyg kan implementeras och (2) skillnaderna som finns mellan de tre marknadsledande RPA-verktygen. Forskningen bidrar också i form av en metod för att undersöka och utvärdera RPA-verktygen. Vid skapandet av utvärderingsmodellen drogs slutsatsen att några av kriterierna i kvalitetsmodellen i ISO/IEC 25010 var av låg relevans och de är därför inte inkluderade i den resulterande modellen. Genom att analysera och utvärdera den skapade utvärderingsmodellen, med hjälp av ett teoretiskt koncept av digitala resurser och deras utvärdering, förstärktes utvärderingsmodellens validitet. Ur ett utvärderingsperspektiv betonar denna forskning behovet av att anpassa och ändra befintliga utvärderingsmetoder för att framgångsrikt utvärdera de mest relevanta egenskaperna hos RPA-verktyg.

Autonomous robots are becoming a bigger part of our society. This thesis aims to evaluate a robot testing dashboard (RTD) that can be used as a new way of finding improvements when developing autonomous robots that do not use machine learning. The method that is used is design science research, which is used when creating and evaluating an artifact to address a practical problem. In our case the artifact isthe RTD. This project was performed at a company called Greenworks, which among other things develops and sells autonomous lawn mowers. The company wants to find new testing methods to help develop their autonomous lawnmowers. The RTD is created to visualize the inputs that the lawn mower utilizes to perform its tasks. A human pilot will then control the lawn mower, by only looking at that visualized data. If the pilot using the RTD can execute the same tasks as the lawn mower in its autonomous mode, the test results can be analyzed to see whether the human has done some parts of the tasks differently. The best outcome from the analysis of the test results is to find areas of improvement that can be implemented into the autonomous lawn mower design, both in software and hardware. For this purpose, an RTD was built and tested at Greenworks. From the tests using the RTD we concluded that it is helpful in the testing process, and we could find areas of improvements after analysis of our tests. However, the use of the RTD will require more time and resources compared to other methods. Each company that uses a similar dashboard concept will have to evaluate if the benefits are worth the time. Furthermore, the concept may not suit all areas of robotics but does seem to suit situations where a human can have an advantage over robots, such as in creative problem solving.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing contemporary industries and being applied in application domains ranging from recommendation systems to self-driving cars. In scenarios in which humans are interacting with an AI, inaccurate algorithms could lead to human mistreatment or even harmful events. Human-in-the-loop computing is a machine learning approach desiring hybrid intelligence, the combination of human and machine intelligence, to achieve accurate and interpretable results. This thesis applies human-in-the-loop computing in a Design Science Research project with a Swedish manufacturing company to make operational processes more efficient. The thesis aims to investigate emerging design principles useful for designing machine learning algorithms of hybrid intelligence. Hereby, the thesis has two key contributions: First, a theoretical framework is built that comprises general design knowledge originating from Information Systems (IS) research. Second, the analysis of empirical findings leads to the review of general IS design principles and to the formulation of useful design principles for human-in-the-loop computing. Whereas the principle of AI-readiness improves the likelihood of strategical AI success, the principle of hybrid intelligence shows how useful it can be to trigger a demand for human-in-the-loop computing in involved stakeholders. The principle of use case-marketing might help designers to promote the customer benefits of applying human-in-the-loop computing in a research setting. By utilizing the principle of power relationship and the principle of human-AI trust, designers can demonstrate the humans’ power over AI and build a trusting human-machine relationship. Future research is encouraged to extend and specify the formulated design principles and employ human-in-the-loop computing in different research settings. With regard to technological advancements in brain-machine interfaces, human-in-the-loop computing might even become much more critical in the future.

Software security for agile methods, particularly for those designed for individual developers, is still a major concern. With most software products deployed over the Internet, security as a key component of software quality has become a major problem. In addressing this problem, this research proposes a solo software development methodology (SSDM) that uses as minimum resources as possible, at the same time conforming to the best practice for delivering secure and high-quality software products. Agile methods have excelled on delivering timely and quality software. At the same time research also shows that most agile methods do not address the problem of security in the developed software. A metasynthesis of SSDMs conducted in this thesis confirmed the lack practices that promote security in the developed software product. On the other hand, some researchers have demonstrated the feasibility of incorporating existing lightweight security practices into agile methods. This research uses Design Science Research (DSR) to build, demonstrate and evaluate a lightweight SSDM. Using an algorithm adapted for the purpose, the research systematically integrates lightweight security and quality practices to produce an agile secure-solo software development methodology (Secure-SSDM). A multiple-case study in an academic and industry setting is conducted to demonstrate and evaluate the utility of the methodology. This demonstration and evaluation thereof, indicates the applicability of the methodology in building high-quality and secure software products. Theoretical evaluation of the agility of the Secure-SSDM using the four-dimensional analytical tool (4-DAT) shows satisfactory compliance of the methodology with agile principles. The main contributions in this thesis are: the Secure-SSDM, which entails description of the concepts, modelling languages, stages, tasks, tools and techniques; generation of a quality theory on practices that promote quality in a solo software development environment; adaptation of Keramati and Mirian-Hosseinabadi’s algorithm for the purposes of integrating quality and security practices. This research would be of value to researchers as it introduces the security component of software quality into a solo software development environment, probing more research in the area. To software developers the research has provided a lightweight methodology that builds quality and security into the product using minimum resources. / School of Computing / D. Phil. (Computer Science)