Computer security impaired by legitimate users

Computer security has traditionally been assessed from a technical point of view. Another way to assess it is by investigating the role played by legitimate users of systems in impairing the level of protection. In order to address this issue, we wish to adopt a multidisciplinary standpoint and investigate some of the human aspects involved in computer security. From research in psychology, it is known that people make biased decisions. They sometimes overlook rules in order to gain maximum benefits for the cost of a given action. This situation leads to insidious security lapses whereby the level of protection is traded-off against usability. In this paper, we highlight the cognitive processes underlying such security impairments. At the end of the paper, we propose a short usability-centred set of recommendations

Field, capital and the policing habitus: nderstanding Bourdieu through The NYPD’s post-9/11 counterterrorism practices

This article extends existing Bourdieusian theory in criminology and security literature through examining the practices of the New York City Police Department in the post-9/11 counterterrorism field. This article makes several original contributions. First, it explores the resilient nature of the policing habitus, extending Bourdieusian criminological findings that habitus are entrenched and difficult to change. Second, this article examines the way the resilient habitus drives subordinate factions to displace dominant factions in a field’s established social hierarchy through boundary-pushing practices, a concept previously unexamined in Bourdieusian criminology. Drawing on original documentary analysis, this article uses the illustrative example of the NYPD’s post-9/11 counterterrorism practices, exploring how it sought to displace the existing social structure by using its aggressive policing habitus and an infusion of ‘War on Terror’ capital to challenge the dominant position of the FBI in the post-9/11 counterterrorism field. The NYPD’s habitus driven counterterrorism practices were novel and unprecedented, creating strain with both the FBI and local communities

Malcolm X and his autobiography: Identity development and self-narration

This paper takes up Tappan’s (2006) project of analyzing the identity development of Malcolm X. Considering Malcolm X’s autobiography as an instance of mediated action, I show how he uses the mediational tool of ‘development as metamorphosis’ to narrate himself. Because of the similarity between this mediational tool and Tappan’s own theory, I question Tappan’s use of the autobiography to illustrate his theory. Utilizing data sources beyond the autobiography, the present analysis makes three theoretical points. First, the development of Malcolm X’s identity is not so much a series of ‘liberations’ as it is the accumulation of discourses from different social strata. Second, it is the complex and unresolved inter-relations between these discourses that comprises the uniqueness of Malcolm X. Third, ideological becoming is often, as in Malcolm X’s case, constrained by social structure. In conclusion, I discuss methodological issues concerning the analysis of a public figure such as Malcolm X

The consumer scam: an agency-theoretic approach

Despite the extensive body of literature that aims to explain the phenomenon of consumer scams, the structure of information in scam relationships remains relatively understudied. The purpose of this article is to develop an agency-theoretical approach to the study of information in perpetrator-victim interactions. Drawing a distinction between failures of observation and failures of judgement in the pre-contract phase, we introduce a typology and a set of propositions that explain the severity of adverse selection problems in three classes of scam relationships. Our analysis provides a novel, systematic explanation of the structure of information that facilitates scam victimisation, while also enabling critical scrutiny of a core assumption in agency theory regarding contract design. We highlight the role of scam perpetrators as agents who have access to private information and exercise considerable control over the terms and design of scam relationships. Focusing on the consumer scam context, we question a theoretical assumption, largely taken for granted in the agency literature, that contact design is necessarily in the purview of the uninformed principal

FBI Presentation on Mortgage Fraud

Special Agent in Charge was Keith Slotter and this document was presented during the FDIC\u27s Interagency Accounting Conference

Shining the light on public attitudes toward laser attacks on aircraft

With increasing incidents being reported, laser attacks present a significant threat to aircraft safety. Although no aircraft accidents have yet been directly attributed to laser attacks to date, experts agree that it is a legitimate threat to safety. To better understand this phenomenon, and ways in which it can be addressed, an important area to understand is the public perception of the severity of such incidents. This would include examining the attitudes the general public hold toward laser attacks, and what views they may hold towards regulation and punishment for these offences. Members of the general public (N=208) completed an online survey that examined their views towards the perceived occurrences and severity of laser attacks, whilst also examining their expectation of criminality and punishment of using a laser against an aircraft. Responses were analysed and presented, with discussion around the nature of public perception and expectation to laser attacks. Mitigations and interventions are explored, focussing on targeted educational/awareness programs that can be used to increase the awareness amongst the general public on the consequences of laser attacks on aircraft

Examining and Constructing Attacker Categorisations:an Experimental Typology for Digital Banking

In this paper, we propose the experimental construction of a new attacker typology grounded in real-life data, using grounded theory analysis and over 200 publicly available documents containing details of digital banking related cybercrime and involved attackers. The current state of this research area is introduced briefly, highlighting current issues and shortcomings. This is supported by a brief investigation into the mechanisms of the construction of previous taxonomies and typologies. Eight attacker profiles forming the typology specific to the case of digital banking are presented. A short discussion of contributions made and suggestions for future research directions in this field are also added

A novel privacy preserving user identification approach for network traffic

The prevalence of the Internet and cloud-based applications, alongside the technological evolution of smartphones, tablets and smartwatches, has resulted in users relying upon network connectivity more than ever before. This results in an increasingly voluminous footprint with respect to the network traffic that is created as a consequence. For network forensic examiners, this traffic represents a vital source of independent evidence in an environment where anti-forensics is increasingly challenging the validity of computer-based forensics. Performing network forensics today largely focuses upon an analysis based upon the Internet Protocol (IP) address – as this is the only characteristic available. More typically, however, investigators are not actually interested in the IP address but rather the associated user (whose account might have been compromised). However, given the range of devices (e.g., laptop, mobile, and tablet) that a user might be using and the widespread use of DHCP, IP is not a reliable and consistent means of understanding the traffic from a user. This paper presents a novel approach to the identification of users from network traffic using only the meta-data of the traffic (i.e. rather than payload) and the creation of application-level user interactions, which are proven to provide a far richer discriminatory feature set to enable more reliable identity verification. A study involving data collected from 46 users over a two-month period generated over 112 GBs of meta-data traffic was undertaken to examine the novel user-interaction based feature extraction algorithm. On an individual application basis, the approach can achieve recognition rates of 90%, with some users experiencing recognition performance of 100%. The consequence of this recognition is an enormous reduction in the volume of traffic an investigator has to analyse, allowing them to focus upon a particular suspect or enabling them to disregard traffic and focus upon what is left

R-Locker: Thwarting Ransomware Action through a Honey le-based Approach

Ransomware has become a pandemic nowadays. Although some proposals exist to fight against this increasing type of extorsion, most of them are prevention like and rely on the assumption that early detection is not so effective once the victim is infected. This paper presents a novel approach intended not just to early detect ransomware but to completly thwart its action. For that, a set of honeyfiles are deployed around the target environment in order to catch the ransomware. Instead of being normal archives, honeyfiles are FIFO like, so that the ransomware is blocked once it starts reading the file. In addition to frustrate its action, our honeyfile solution is able to automatically launch countermeasures to solve the infection. Moreover, as it does not require previous training or knowledge, the approach allows fighting against unknown, zero-day ransomware related attacks. As a proof of concept, we have developed the approach for Unix platforms. The tool, named R-Locker, shows excellent performance both from the perspective of its accuracy as well as in terms of complexity and resource consumption. In addition, it has no special needs or privileges and does not affect the normal operation of the overall environment