Journal of Information Security and Applications, Vol. 22: 113-122
Abstract:
Social engineering has emerged as a serious threat in virtual communities and is an effective means to attack information systems.
The services used by today's knowledge workers prepare the ground for sophisticated social engineering attacks. The growing trend towards BYOD (bring your own device) policies and the use of online communication and collaboration tools in private and business environments aggravate the problem. In globally acting companies, teams are no longer geographically co-located, but staffed just-in-time. The decrease in personal interaction combined with a plethora of tools used for communication (e-mail, IM, Skype, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Lync, etc.) create new attack vectors for social engineering attacks. Recent attacks on companies such as the New York Times and RSA have shown that targeted spear-phishing attacks are an effective, evolutionary step of social engineering attacks. Combined with zero-day-exploits, they become a dangerous weapon that is often used by advanced persistent threats. This paper provides a taxonomy of well-known social engineering attacks as well as a comprehensive overview of advanced social engineering attacks on the knowledge worker.
International Conference on Information Technology in Disaster Risk Reduction ITDRR 2016: Information Technology in Disaster Risk Reduction pp 214-224
Abstract:
Volunteered geographic information (VGI) has been seen as useful information in times of disasters.
Several authors have shown that VGI is useful for coping with preparedness and response phases of disaster management. However, because it is still a young technology, the use of VGI remains uncertain, due to its lack of strong reliability and validity. It is our assumption that to improve reliability and validity the promotion of citizen engagement (CE) is needed. CE is not new topic, but in the digital humanitarian context, it involves important factors that are not yet considered by disaster managers, such as communication processes, motivation of volunteers, different media for production of information, etc. To fill this gap, we identified a set of preliminary factors which should be considered to promote the involvement of volunteers in disaster management. These factors were derived from critical review of CE literature and from an analysis of lessons learned from an experiment on interaction with citizens carried out in context of the EU-project “DRIVER – Driving Innovation in Crisis Management for European Resilience”.
International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection, Vol. 8: 53-66
Abstract:
Critical infrastructures play a vital role in supporting modern society.
The reliability, performance, continuous operation, safety, maintenance and protection of critical infrastructures are national priorities for countries around the world. This paper explores the vulnerabilities and threats facing modern critical infrastructures with special emphasis on industrial control systems, and describes a number of protection measures. The paper also discusses some of the challenging areas related to critical infrastructure protection such as governance and security management, secure network architectures, self-healing, modeling and simulation, wide-area situational awareness, forensics and learning, and trust management and privacy.
Technological revolutions bring opportunities, but sometimes even greater threats.
This ‘paradox of progress’ affects cyberspace and threatens the very principle and foundation of the open internet. The global debate on cyber-governance is currently in a stalemate on the norms for global stability of cyberspace and the fight against cybercrime, although the EU is making considerable efforts to strengthen cyberspace resilience and the critical information infrastructure. The author argues that the newly proposed Cybersecurity Act should be supported by additional measures to increase awareness, devise smarter policy and enable effective governance. Too many users and businesses are still failing to take cybersecurity and computer hygiene seriously. And there is a need to strengthen the pan-European coordination of deterrence, detection, and defence. This paper looks at the possibilities for the EU in this domain and argues that at a time of American diplomatic and political retrenchment from Europe and the world, it has an opportunity to play a leading role in global cybersecurity policy and governance.
This book analyses trends and changes in the European Union’s (EU) humanitarian aid policy, by focusing on the performance of Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs).
NGOs have developed strong relationships with international institutions but have also maintained direct interaction with EU member states. The result is a multi-layered process in which national interests, common values, universal principles and global duties meet and interact. By combining a deepening of the theoretical debate with the use of empirical data on the funding of NGO projects by EU institutions and member states, the book significantly furthers our understanding of the complex relationship between these actors. It will appeal to students and scholars interested in EU politics, global security, and international aid, as well as practitioners in the humanitarian field.
During the organization of the Roundtable on “Security and Societal Issues: how to strike the good balance” that took place in Brussels on the 8th February 2016, three video interviews with the mai
On the 15th of June 2015, in Brussels, experts in cyber security and predictive policing from around Europe, representing all stakeholder groups (police, industry, policy making, civil society, tec
hnology and academia), expressed their concerns about the new societal challenges brought forward by the use of modern technologies and cyber-crime. The outcome of the debate is summarised in this short video.
Yvan de Mesmaeker is the Secretary General of the European Corporate Security Association (ECSA) and Professor at the Belgian National College for Senior Police Officers.
ECSA is an association representing over 300 security corporations that provides a trusted forum for discussions of mutual interest and to stimulate public private cooperation. This video interview is a part of a series of interviews with experts in the field of security for SOURCE Virtual centre of excellence for research support and coordination on societal security.
Sebastian is a researcher at Fraunhofer headquarters Berlin, and the CEO of his startup Uberblik where he develops technology solutions for different groups of people.
This video interview is a part of a series of interviews with experts in the field of security for SOURCE Virtual centre of excellence for research support and coordination on societal security.
David Cronin is a writer and independent journalist.
He has written two books: Corporate Europe: How Big Business Sets Policies on Food, Climate and War, and Europe’s Alliance With Israel: Aiding the Occupation. He also writes for, amongst others, the Guardian, Spinwatch and Open Democracy. This video interview is a part of a series of interviews with experts in the field of security for SOURCE Virtual centre of excellence for research support and coordination on societal security.
