The increase in online activities which involve peopleâ s identification information means that identity theft has become a widespread computer security issue. Identity theft is defined as the misuse of personal information and identity. To address this problem, an Information Assurance training tool, such as CyberCIEGE, can be used for user awareness and education. This thesis incorporated current research on identity theft attacks and prevention techniques into a customized scenario definition file for the CyberCIEGE game engine. The scenario teaches players about methods of identity theft prevention in computing and networked environments by focusing on four main prevention techniques: updating antivirus protection regularly, being cautious about executable email attachments, resisting phishing attacks, and using secure web browser connections for online transactions. After scenario development, an informal test process of the Identity Theft scenario was conducted. Testing found that the experienced and expected results coincided. Recommendations for improvement of the CyberCIEGE game engine, Scenario Definition Tool, and Identity Theft scenario were also provided.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Leicester in association with The University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-105) Also available in print.

Phishing is a form of crime in which identity theft is accomplished by use of deceptive electronic mail and a fake site on the World Wide Web. Phishing threatens financial institutions, retail companies, and consumers daily and phishers remain successful by researching anti-phishing countermeasures and adapting their attack methods to the countermeasures, either to exploit them, or completely circumvent them. An effective solution to phishing requires a multi-faceted defense strategy. We propose a model for phishing. We report on a survey we conducted of user detection of phishing. We also report on experiments to assess the success of automated methods for assessing clues to phishing email. We present recommendations for a defense-in-depth strategy to prevent phishing.

<p> This research explored the challenges that New Hampshire manufacturers faced in introducing and sustaining improvement initiatives and the social dimension of this issue.</p><p> Using an ethnographic methodology, participant-observation was employed to examine the culture of a New Hampshire manufacturer. Through active participation in work groups, regular assignments, and meetings, an understanding of the impact the culture had on the implementation of a set of improvement techniques known as lean manufacturing was gained. Observations illuminated the leadership roles that both management and workers play. Nine themes described the lived experience and the social forces that guided that experience. These themes were: subgroups, lack of overall teamwork, dominant clique, lack of management interaction, focus on the past, workers social lives, individual cooperation, pride in workmanship, lack of process ownership. The effect of these nine themes on the lean initiatives was explored. Finally, the study extrapolated the findings to provide recommendations on successful practices in sustaining lean improvements.</p>

The purpose of this thesis is to explore Social Engineering and how marketing communications may be able to affect it. This research takes a step back from other research in the area and considers the decision makers behind Social Engineering, instead of Social Engineering interventions. One way for stakeholders to influence Social Engineering is through influencing the initial decision of which Social Engineering intervention to use. The influence of marketing communications is considered using diffusion theory, which uncovers how marketing communications diffuse through and influence a decision making group. First, the research uncovers the Social Engineering Decision Making Process. This is the decision making process of Governments for Social Engineering Decisions. The Social Engineering Decision Making Process is the combination of Podgórecki’s Sociotechnical Paradigm (1990) and Roger’s Innovation Diffusion Process (2003). The research then explores this framework through its illustration in a retailing context. The Social Engineering intervention chosen for this research is the shop trading hour legislation in New Zealand. The Social Engineering decision studied is the decision to introduce Sunday trading through the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Act (1990). An historical analysis explores the Social Engineering of shop trading hours, in line with an Historical methodology and Constructivist and Hermeneutic viewpoint. This narrative is created through document analysis and semi-structured in-depth interviews with five different stakeholder groups from the decision to introduce Sunday trading. The historical narrative also illustrates the Social Engineering Decision Making Process. Lastly, to uncover the influence of marketing communications and the media on the Social Engineering Decision Making Process, a content analysis of marketing communications and media over the time of the decision to introduce Sunday trading occurs. Government discussions and reports regarding the decision are also analysed. If the communications influence the Government discussions, then their themes would be present in Government documents directly following the communications. The results lend support to the Social Engineering Decision Making Process. Results outline the aspects of the legislative process that reflect each stage of the Social Engineering Decision Making Process. Findings also find support for the influence of Marketing communications and media on the Government’s decision making. The three most effective times for stakeholders to try to influence the process, through either mass or interpersonal communications are also identified.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore Social Engineering and how marketing communications may be able to affect it. This research takes a step back from other research in the area and considers the decision makers behind Social Engineering, instead of Social Engineering interventions. One way for stakeholders to influence Social Engineering is through influencing the initial decision of which Social Engineering intervention to use. The influence of marketing communications is considered using diffusion theory, which uncovers how marketing communications diffuse through and influence a decision making group. First, the research uncovers the Social Engineering Decision Making Process. This is the decision making process of Governments for Social Engineering Decisions. The Social Engineering Decision Making Process is the combination of Podgórecki’s Sociotechnical Paradigm (1990) and Roger’s Innovation Diffusion Process (2003). The research then explores this framework through its illustration in a retailing context. The Social Engineering intervention chosen for this research is the shop trading hour legislation in New Zealand. The Social Engineering decision studied is the decision to introduce Sunday trading through the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal Act (1990). An historical analysis explores the Social Engineering of shop trading hours, in line with an Historical methodology and Constructivist and Hermeneutic viewpoint. This narrative is created through document analysis and semi-structured in-depth interviews with five different stakeholder groups from the decision to introduce Sunday trading. The historical narrative also illustrates the Social Engineering Decision Making Process. Lastly, to uncover the influence of marketing communications and the media on the Social Engineering Decision Making Process, a content analysis of marketing communications and media over the time of the decision to introduce Sunday trading occurs. Government discussions and reports regarding the decision are also analysed. If the communications influence the Government discussions, then their themes would be present in Government documents directly following the communications. The results lend support to the Social Engineering Decision Making Process. Results outline the aspects of the legislative process that reflect each stage of the Social Engineering Decision Making Process. Findings also find support for the influence of Marketing communications and media on the Government’s decision making. The three most effective times for stakeholders to try to influence the process, through either mass or interpersonal communications are also identified.

No description available.

published_or_final_version / SPACE / Master / Master of Arts

Malware continues to be one of the primary tools employed by attackers. It is used in attacks ranging from click fraud to nation state espionage. Malware infects hosts over the network through drive-by downloads and social engineering. These infected hosts communicate with remote command and control (C&C) servers to perform tasks and exfiltrate data. Malware's reliance on the network provides an opportunity for the detection and annotation of malicious communication. This thesis presents four main contributions. First, we design and implement a novel incident investigation system, named WebWitness. It automatically traces back and labels the sequence of events (e.g., visited web pages) preceding malware downloads to highlight how users reach attack pages on the web; providing a better understanding of current attack trends and aiding in the development of more effective defenses. Second, we conduct the first systematic study of modern web based social engineering malware download attacks. From this study we develop a categorization system for classifying social engineering downloads and use it to measure attack properties. From these measurements we show that it is possible to detect the majority of social engineering downloads using features from the download path. Third, we design and implement ExecScent, a novel system for mining new malware C&C domains from live networks. ExecScent automatically learns C&C traffic models that can adapt to the deployment network's traffic. This adaptive approach allows us to greatly reduce the false positives while maintaining a high number of true positives. Lastly, we develop a new packet scheduling algorithm for deep packet inspection that maximizes throughput by optimizing for cache affinity. By scheduling for cache affinity, we are able to deploy our systems on multi-gigabit networks.

Syftet med denna studie är att ta reda på hur medvetna gymnasieelever är om it-säkerhetshot och risker på Internet. Detta har gjorts genom att först undersöka aktuella hot genom att studera trendrapporter från ledande it-säkerhetsföretag. Denna information har sedan använts i en enkät för att ta reda på kunskapen och medvetenhetsnivån om dessa it-säkerhetshot bland gymnasieelever i Uppsala. Studien visar att det finns ett behov av utökad kunskap inom området. I resultatet kunde särskilda brister ses i de sociala aspekterna av it-säkerhet. Undersökningens resultat kan användas som stöd vid framtagandet av utbildning inom risker och hot på Internet.