Cyber security research seminar series

In today's digital era, businesses continue to rely heavily on digital technology for their operations, accuracy, and improved process efficiency. So, the need to protect against cyber threats has become increasingly important. In the field of recent technological development, blockchain technology is one of the most promising domains. Blockchain is a decentralized, peer-to-peer distributed ledger that is immutable, transparent, and secure. It creates a permanent digital record of transactions that is tamper-proof, making it an ideal security solution to maintain trust, visibility, and traceability.

Blockchain's ability to secure data and transactions makes it a perfect partner in the cybersecurity space and makes the system more resilient than ever. It has already found its way into various sectors of the economy such as finance, supply chain, healthcare, etc. It has the potential to revolutionize the way information and systems are secured and is gaining traction in the business world. Thus, blockchain technology provides unique features that make it one of the most promising solutions in the field of cybersecurity. In this talk, Dr Jims Marchang will dissect Blockchain technology to understand its building blocks, and its fundamentals and explore its importance in unlocking its potential and harvesting its features.

Dr Dionysios Demetis is a Reader at the Business School of the University of Hull, UK, and a Visiting Professor at Texas A&M, USA. He holds a PhD on Information Systems from the London School of Economics. His research in information security awareness has been connected to major EU-funded projects, covering a range of topics from Information Systems and Anti-Money Laundering to broader issues within the Information Society, such as cyber-threats, information security management, and biometric security. Dr Demetis' research on cyber-threats online for the prevention of online child sexual exploitation has been recognised with prestigious awards, including the best paper award from the 4* Journal of the Association for Information Systems (JAIS) and the discipline-wide AIS Senior Scholars Best Paper Award. Formerly a member of the Information Security Integrity Group (ISIG) at the London School of Economics, he contributed to various aspects of cybersecurity over a number of years and has worked on a large Network of Excellence EU-funded project (FIDIS) on security-related aspects, a project that included Microsoft and IBM. Dr Demetis serves as a Senior Editor at the Journal of Information Systems Security and is the co-Chair of the Annual Security Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, an international conference featuring participation from the cybercrime teams of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Secret Service. His scholarly works, especially those addressing systemic and sociotechnical aspects of security, emphasise the importance of developing comprehensive socio-technical security frameworks from a systems theory perspective. A lot of his research is also at the cross-section of cybercrime and cyber-money laundering (e.g., cryptocurrency-based money laundering).

Cyber insurance and ransomware are two of the most popular topics in security today, and their interplay continues to raise concerns in academia, industry and government. This talk focuses the discussion to examine to what extent cyber insurance is helping to mitigate or aggravate the threat of ransomware. We draw on years of research and engagement with over a 100 professionals from the security, insurance, ransomware recovery and government sectors. The research from this talk has been published and is accessible here: Between a rock and a hard(ening) place: Cyber insurance in the ransomware era https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2023.103162.

Jason R.C. Nurse is a Reader in Cyber Security in the Institute of Cyber Security for Society (iCSS) & School of Computing at the University of Kent, UK. He also holds the roles of Visiting Fellow in Defence & Security at Cranfield University, UK, and Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI). His-research interests include cyber insurance and ransomware, security risk management, corporate communications and cyber security, cyber resilience, and security culture.

An Insider threat is a security risk that originates within the targeted organization, from employee, contractor, or other business partner who has authorized access to the organisation’s network, system, or data and intentionally exceeds or misuses that access in a manner that negatively affects the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of the organisation’s information or information systems. Insider threat is unarguably one of the most underestimated areas of cybersecurity. Organisations cannot rely on traditional perimeter security measures to protect their assets thus in this talk we will explore how Artificial Intelligence can help in mitigating this issue.

Dr Stavros Shiaeles is Reader (Associate Professor) at the University of Portsmouth, UK and visiting Professor University of Peloponnese, Greece, Bharath University, India and Capitol Technology University, USA. His research interest span to the broad area of Cybersecurity and more specifically in OSINT, Social Engineering, Distributed Denial of Service Attacks, Cloud Security, Digital Forensics, Network Anomaly Detection and Malware mitigation. He authored more than 100 publications in academic journals and conference, chaired many workshops in IEEE well-known conferences such as IEEE Service and NetSoft and currently co-chairing IEEE International Conference on Security and Resilience Series (IEEE CSR).

Surely we’ve said enough about passwords?

Passwords have been part of the cyber security landscape for years – indeed, for many years before we even called it cyber security. Moreover, for much of that time, they have been criticised, for the level of security they provide and the way that we use them. So, here in 2023, several decades down the line in terms of our use of them, you would perhaps assume that passwords are being used as well as we can manage within the limits of the approach. Unfortunately, this is often far from the case. While many sites allow (and indeed require) us to create password-based accounts, many also fail to provide effective guidance and enforcement of rules to support the process. The presentation examines the related provisions (or lack of them) in ten leading websites, as well as how the situation has changed over time. While passwords provide the specific focus, there is also a wider lesson in terms of ensuring that users are sufficiently supported in the cyber security methods that they are expected to use.

Wednesday 1 March 2023 11:00-12:30

Solving a murder case using medical devices (a true story)
The seminar will present a case study in which medical devices and implanted medical devices were used to help solve a murder case. The presentation will cover the use of technology in forensics, specifically focusing on the role of medical devices such as pacemakers, insulin pumps, and other implantable medical devices in gathering evidence to identify a suspect. The case study will explore the circumstances of the murder, how the victim's implanted medical devices were used to track their movements, and how the data was used to establish a timeline of events leading up to the murder. Additionally, the seminar will discuss the ethical and legal considerations around the use of this type of data in criminal investigations. Attendees will learn about the growing use of technology in criminal investigations and the potential impact of medical devices in solving crimes. The presentation will also highlight the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration between medical professionals, law enforcement, and legal experts in utilizing medical device data in criminal investigations.

Veronica is an experienced forensic expert who began her career in 2008. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor at Noroff University and holds a master's degree in Information Security from Rhodes University with a specialization in malware forensic analysis.