Suchergebnisse

Information security issues are characterized with interdependence. Particularly, cyber criminals can easily cross national boundaries and exploit jurisdictional limitations between countries. Thus, whether cyber attacks are spatially autocorrelated is a strategic issue for government authorities and a tactic issue for insurance companies. Through an empirical study of cyber attacks across 62 countries during the period 2003-2007, we find little evidence on the spatial autocorrelation of cyber attacks at any week. However, after considering economic opportunity, IT infrastructure, international collaboration in enforcement and conventional crimes, we find strong evidence that cyber attacks were indeed spatially autocorrelated as they moved over time. The policy and managerial implication is that physical boundary should be an important factor in addressing strategic cyber attacks and their potential risks.

Cyberattacks are computer-to-computer attacks undermining the confidentiality, integrity, and/or availability of computers and/or the information they hold. The importance of securing cyberspace is increasing, along with the sophistication and potential significance of the results of the attacks. Moreover, attacksb involve increasingly sophisticated coordination among multiple hackers across international boundaries, where the aim has shifted from fun and self-satisfaction to financial or military gain, with clear and self-reinforcing motivation; for example, the number of new malicious code threats worldwide increased more than 71% from 2008 to 2009.

Cybersecurity policy analytics can be done using publically available internet information. This paper introduces the main idea, data sources, methodology and key findings of cybersecurity policy analytics research projects covering the following key issues: - Deterrence effect of domestic enforcement and international treaty legislation on cybercrime. - The dual use characteristic of hacking knowledge and tools and the issue of online hacker forum censorship. - Critical information infrastructure identification through internet topology analytics. - Incentive-compatible mechanisms for organizations to share information related to cybersecurity threats, incidents and emergency response. At the end of this paper, we propose future directions to promote cybersecurity policy analytics with internet information.

Prior studies have evidenced the effectiveness of more severe and broader enforcement in deterringcybercrimes. This study addresses the other side of the story. Our data analysis shows that theenforcement against the production / distribution / possession of computer misuse tools tends toincrease the contribution on detection and protection related posts in online hacker forums. Butthis enforcement may discourage those contributors who had originally actively contributed to theprotection discussions. Thus government regulations have to be cautiously justify the incentives ofmultiple parties in the cybersecurity context.

To reduce the availability of hacking tools for violators in committing cybersecurity offences, many countries have enacted the legislation to criminalize the production, distribution and possession of computer misuse tools with offensive intent. However, the dual-use nature of cybersecurity technology increases the difficulty in the legal process to recognize computer misuse tools and predict their harmful outcome, which leads to unintended impacts of the enforcement on the provision of techniques valuable for information security defence. Leveraging an external shock in online hacker forums, this study examines the potential impacts of the enforcement of computer misuse on users' contribution to information security knowledge sharing characterized by distinct intents for either offensive hacking or security defence, or by a neutral intent with potential for dual-use. Via a user-level mixed nested logit model, we find that the enforcement reduces the average probability of neutral content contribution by 11.13% which provides the initial evidence of a chilling effect, together with the presence of deterrence effect on offensive hacking content and substitution effect on defensive content. Our empirical findings further suggest that the chilling effect on neutral content could be reinforced by contribution incentives in a social community, such as personal experience, audience attention and group size. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.

To tackle the ubiquitous cybersecurity threats, a few countries have enacted legislation to criminalize the production, distribution and possession of computer misuse tools. Consequently, online hacker forums, which enable the provision and dissemination of malicious cyber-attack techniques among potential hackers or technology-savvy users, are subject to censorship. This project examines the mixed impacts of online hacker forum censorship on users' contribution to protection discussion through a natural experiment with large-scale content analysis. We find that while the enforcement indeed reduced the discussion on malicious cyber-attacks, the discussion on cybersecurity protection could increase or decrease in different scenarios. The rationale is that while the online hacker forum censorship imposes risk to the discussion of malicious attacks, it also reduces the potential benefit from discussing protection issues. Policy implications are discussed.

To tackle the ubiquitous cybersecurity threats, a few countries have enacted legislation to criminalize the production, distribution and possession of computer misuse tools. Consequently, online hacker forums, which enable the provision and dissemination of malicious cyber-attack techniques among potential hackers or technology-savvy users, are subject to censorship. This project examines the mixed impacts of online hacker forum censorship on users' contribution to protection discussion through a natural experiment with large-scale content analysis. We find that while the enforcement indeed reduced the discussion on malicious cyber-attacks, the discussion on cybersecurity protection could increase or decrease in different scenarios. The rationale is that while the online hacker forum censorship imposes risk to the discussion of malicious attacks, it also reduces the potential benefit from discussing protection issues. Policy implications are discussed.

In this paper, we estimate the impact of enforcing the Convention on Cybercrime (COC) on deterring distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks. Our data set comprises a sample of real, random spoof-source DDOS attacks recorded in 106 countries in 177 days in the period 2004-2008. We find that enforcing the COC decreases DDOS attacks by at least 11.8 percent, but a similar deterrence effect does not exist if the enforcing countries make a reservation on international cooperation. We also find evidence of network and displacement effects in COC enforcement. Our findings imply attackers in cyberspace are rational, motivated by economic incentives, and strategic in choosing attack targets. We draw related implications.

Without increased government intervention andgovernment-industry collaboration, the advantages inherent in the next wave ofInternet-enabled digital transformation will increasingly tilt towardcyber criminals, and their influence will disproportionately increase. The dilemma that immediately presents itself in such ascenario, however, is that an increased level of government involvement canalso lead to undesirable consequences. Increasing security always comes withtrade-offs that must be managed. The obvious concerns relate to the erosion ofprivacy, illegal or extralegal persecution, the abuse of Internet censorshipand the impediment to or stifling of innovation.

Without increased government intervention and government-industry collaboration, the advantages inherent in the next wave of Internet-enabled digital transformation will increasingly tilt toward cybercriminals, and their influence will disproportionately increase. The dilemma that immediately presents itself in such a scenario, however, is that an increased level of government involvement can also lead to undesirable consequences. Increasing security always comes with trade-offs that must be managed. The obvious concerns relate to the erosion of privacy, illegal or extralegal persecution, the abuse of Internet censorship and the impediment to or stifling of innovation.