Cyber Breaches Research Articles

Navigating Modern Threats: The Imperative of Strengthening Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity has become crucial in today's changing world to protect data and promote technological advancements, according to a recent online study. In a world where networks and IoT devices are increasingly interconnected and vulnerable, to attacks cyber threats have become a concern as discussed in the research paper I came across. The study delves into issues related to cybersecurity risks. Emphasizes the importance of implementing strong security measures to prevent unauthorized access and cyber breaches. The research explores studies by areas that need more attention while stressing the value of modern approaches, like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in boosting threat identification and reaction capabilities. This article discusses the importance of cybersecurity, in maintaining stability and security through analysis. It emphasizes the need for companies to adopt technologies in their security measures for managing risks. The results of this article have implications, for fostering cooperation to tackle cybersecurity issues and contribute to securing a digital future. Keywords Cyber Security, Cyber Attacks, Challenges, Threats, Vulnerabilities

The Role of Internet of Battlefield Things in Modern Warfare: A Cybersecurity Perspective

The Internet of Battlefield Things (IoBT) is revolutionizing military operations by integrating interconnected devices and autonomous systems into combat environments, significantly enhancing decision-making, communication, and battlefield efficiency. However, this reliance on IoBT introduces substantial cybersecurity risks, exposing military networks to sophisticated cyber threats such as hacking, malware, and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. This paper explores the interplay between IoBT and the cyber domain, identifying the key challenges, vulnerabilities, and solutions necessary to secure these interconnected systems in the context of modern warfare. The study reviews the architectural components of IoBT, including sensors, drones, and communication networks, and examines their potential weaknesses in the face of cyberattacks. Additionally, it discusses common attack vectors such as Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) and zero-day exploits, which pose significant risks to military systems. To counter these threats, the paper evaluates various cybersecurity strategies, including the application of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), blockchain technology, and robust encryption protocols designed to enhance the resilience and security of IoBT networks. Case studies of real-world IoBT deployments and cyber breaches further illustrate the practical implications of these challenges and defense mechanisms.

A methodical examination of single and multi-attacker flood attacks using RPL-based approaches

The Internet of Things (IoT) constitutes an intricate network of physical entities, ranging from vehicles to home appliances, each ingrained with electronics, software, sensors, and internet connectivity to facilitate data exchange and collection. This novel realm of interconnectivity, while yielding considerable advantages, also invites concerns over cybersecurity, as the vast amount of sensitive data gathered by IoT devices necessitates safeguarding against potential cyber breaches. In this context, the focus of cybersecurity in IoT involves the deployment of diverse technologies, standards, and optimum practices including, but not limited to, encryption, firewalls, and multi-factor authentication. Hence, while IoT contributes significantly to societal advancement, addressing the associated security concerns remains an imperative task. This study therefore delves into an examination of flood attacks, a prevalent form of cyber assault aimed at IoT devices. The study explored the ramifications of such an attack on an IoT system by analyzing network traffic in scenarios of singular and multiple attackers. A benchmark model devoid of an attack was employed for comparative purposes. To circumvent additional stress on the operational system, network packets were mirrored through cloud infrastructure and subsequently relayed to artificial intelligence (AI) and forensic analysis tools for real-time examination. To assure the integral cybersecurity component of continuity within IoT systems, the attacking entities were identified through AI, and forensic tools were employed to conduct real-time data analysis, thereby enabling continuous network monitoring. This study introduces an innovative approach to detecting flood attacks on IoT systems by leveraging a novel AI-based technique that integrates the ’6LoWPAN.Pattern’ feature, previously unexplored in this context. Extensive simulations were conducted to analyze the impact of flood attacks using both single and multiple-attacker scenarios. Our method demonstrated a 99.9% success rate in attacker identification, distinguishing it from existing techniques. This research contributes to the cybersecurity field by enhancing the detection capabilities within IoT networks and offering a robust model against a prevalent form of cyber threats.

“Big Data Breaches”, sovereignty of states and the challenges in attribution

“Big data” refers to large sets of data, which are computationally analyzed to reveal patterns or trends in human behavior and interactions. At present, with the increased use of cyberspace for day-to-day activities, sensitive personal data is stored in computer servers. This massive number of data sets could be used to generate predictive models for a variety of uses such as policy-making and the prediction of societal changes. This has propelled nation-state adversaries to amass “big data” of another state through low-threshold data breaches. This article focuses on “big data breaches” committed by “state or state-sponsored groups”, involving a massive amount of data from victim states. For a cyber-attack to qualify as an “armed attack” or “use of force” under international law, it must satisfy the requirements of the “scale and effect” test. However, a big data breach would not satisfy this test and the attribution of the liability for lower-threshold cyber breaches has become a challenge. This is mainly because there is lack of consensus on the international law principles applicable to cyberspace. Nevertheless, big data breaches must be attributed, because it is an intrusion on state sovereignty, threatens security and results in economic loss. Qualitative research methodology was used to analyze state-sponsored big data breaches, the existing international legal framework, the drawbacks in attribution of such breaches and the need to push forth tailor-made laws for attribution of low-threshold big data breaches.

Empirical evidence on disclosing cyber breaches in an 8-K report: Initial exploratory evidence

The primary objective of this exploratory study is to assess whether 8-K disclosure, compared to alternative disclosure, explains the inconsistent results in prior studies examining the impact of cyber breaches on stock prices. The major finding of this study is that the negative magnitude of the stock price reaction and the duration of the reaction are substantially different for firms disclosing their cyber breaches via an 8-K compared to firms disclosing their breaches via other sources. Our results provide support for the new cybersecurity disclosure rules issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (2023).

Exponential tilting for zero-inflated interval regression with applications to cyber security survey data

Abstract Non-negative ordered survey data often exhibit an unusually high frequency of zeros in the first interval. Zero-inflated interval regression models handle the excess of zeros by combining a split probit model and an ordered probit model. In the presence of data violating distributional assumptions, standard inference based on the maximum likelihood method gives biased estimates with large standard errors. In this paper, we consider robust inference based on the exponential tilting methodology for the zero-inflated interval regression model. The application considers data on cyber security to study the relationship between investments in cyber defences and losses from cyber breaches. Robust estimates obtained via tilting clearly show an effect of the investments in reducing the loss amount.

Semisupervised Machine Learning Approach for Ddos Detection

Analyzing cyber incident data sets is an important method for deepening our understanding of the evolution of the threat situation. In present generation we come to know about many cyber breaches and hacking taking place. In this project work, we research about the various cyber- attacks and breaches and study the way these attacks are done and find an alternative for the same. We show that rather than by distributing these attacks as because they exhibit autocorrelations, we should model by stochastic process both the hacking breach incident inter- arrival times and breach sizes. We draw a set of cyber securities insights, including that the threat of cyber hacks is indeed getting worse in terms of their frequency. In our project we will be using the algorithms such as Convolution Neural Network (CNN) as existing and Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) as proposed for analyzing our results. From the results obtained its proved that proposed RNN works better than existing CNN.

Reporting a Cyber Security Breach: How Organizations Respond

Cyber breaches and ransomware attacks now occur so frequently that they have become facets of organizational life. These breaches are unique in that they are initially silent; a limited number of organizational members know about the incident so firms usually have ample time to prepare a Cyber Breach Revelation (CBR). This study analyzes 378 press releases acknowledging a cyber security breach. It finds four response clusters that highlight how compromised organizations reveal cyberattacks to external stakeholders: (1) empathetic acknowledgment; (2) assurance of the organization’s breach-handling capability; (3) restoration of confidence; and, (4) re-establishment of trust and loyalty. These clusters provide meaningful insights as to how firms reveal cyber breaches to their stakeholders and, equally as important, open the door for further studies as to the effectiveness and sequencing of these approaches.

Creating Proactive Cyber Threat Intelligence with Hacker Exploit Labels: A Deep Transfer Learning Approach

The rapid proliferation of complex information systems has been met by an ever-increasing quantity of exploits that can cause irreparable cyber breaches. To mitigate these cyber threats, academia and industry have placed a significant focus on proactively identifying and labeling exploits developed by the international hacker community. However, prevailing approaches for labeling exploits in hacker forums do not leverage metadata from exploit darknet markets or public exploit repositories to enhance labeling performance. In this study, we adopted the computational design science paradigm to develop a novel information technology artifact, the deep transfer learning exploit labeler (DTL-EL). DTL-EL incorporates a pre-initialization design, multi-layer deep transfer learning (DTL), and a self-attention mechanism to automatically label exploits in hacker forums. We rigorously evaluated the proposed DTL-EL against state-of-the-art non-DTL benchmark methods based in classical machine learning and deep learning. Results suggest that the proposed DTL-EL significantly outperforms benchmark methods based on accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score. Our proposed DTL-EL framework provides important practical implications for key stakeholders such as cybersecurity managers, analysts, and educators.

A METHOD OF PREDICTING WITH MODELLING OF CYBER HACKING AND BREACHES

A METHOD OF PREDICTING WITH MODELLING OF CYBER HACKING AND BREACHES

Cyber breaches in Critical Infrastructure: It’s not just about Personal Data Breaches Anymore (Part 2)

Cyber breaches in Critical Infrastructure: It’s not just about Personal Data Breaches Anymore (Part 2)

Which information locations in covered entities under HIPAA must be secured first? A multi-criteria decision-making approach.

Creating adequate safeguards for physical and online locations (e.g., desktop computers, network servers) where protected health information (PHI) may be breached is critical for management within entities compliant with the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). With the increasing complexity of cyber breaches and budgetary issues, prioritizing which locations require the most immediate attention by top management through a data-driven model is more important than ever. Using CORAS threat modeling and five methods for multi-criteria decision-making, these locations were ranked from greatest to least risk of data breaches. Statistical methods were subsequently used for consistency and robustness checks. The findings illustrate that each type of covered entity under HIPAA must prioritize a different set of locations to safeguard first: health care providers must focus on the security of network servers, other portable electronic devices, and category of others (i.e., miscellaneous locations); health plans must focus on the security of paper and films, network servers, and others; and business associates must focus on the security of category of others, network servers, and other portable electronic devices. Combined with data on the source of the breaches (external vs. internal) and type of threats (e.g., hacking, theft), these findings provide recommendations for risk identification for privacy officers across health care.

Cybersecurity: An Appraisal of Policy Frameworks and Related Conventions

Cybercrime is a global threat to cybersecurity that crosses national borders and has no geographical boundaries. The global community establishes, ratifies, and implements common global accepted treaties and conventions to guide and direct cybersecurity. Nonetheless, the setting of internationally accepted standards for cybersecurity has been a difficult task. Cyberspace is a complex, erratic, and rapidly developing hybrid that is both physical and virtual. To eliminate chaos in cyberspace, improve cybersecurity, and eliminate cybercrime, a global framework of laws and conventions is required. To keep up with criminals' ability to exploit cyberspace, international laws and conventions must be gradually and robustly established and speedily and continuously amended. Adherence to stringent security measures and policies on the part of both public and private companies will aid in the implementation of increasingly stringent cybersecurity measures and international regulations in this regard. Cybersecurity must be prioritised in business. Companies should have cyberattack risk management strategies in place to prevent cyber breaches. Formal training for security cluster members and business representatives is required to effectively deal with the cybersecurity phenomenon.

When the Tertiary Care Hospital Becomes Technologically Austere: Communication Lessons Learned from an American Health System Cyberattack

Introduction:Cyberattacks continue to plague medical systems across the world with nearly 24% of all cyber breaches impacting health systems. In Fall 2021, a large, tertiary care county hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA suffered a cyberattack, causing over four weeks of downtime, forcing the system to revert to paper charting and to operate without the electronic medical record (EMR) or internet. Communication in the Emergency Department is structured through the EMR system or wireless local area network (WLAN) phones, causing communication difficulties when online systems are disrupted.Method:In the twelve months following the breach, a series of communications-focused interviews with stakeholders including residents, faculty, nurses, and consultants were analyzed using a thematic analysis.Results:Through interviews, four key themes and recommendations were identified for every internet-dependent tertiary care system to establish and maintain communication links when the primary form of communication is compromised and access to internet is limited or nonexistent: Expect systems to fail–plan aheadDevelop multilayered communication tools that are stored and structured at different sitesNotify all affected teams immediately and initiate the downtime action planReassess and adapt the downtime action plan as information becomes availableConclusion:While every system is going to experience different struggles during cyberattacks and downtime, all hospitals can benefit from improving communication structures when the established communication pathways are no longer available. Consider cybersecurity threats in your emergency planning meetings and designate systems to protect your communication abilities during downtime.

Cyberthreats: A primer for healthcare professionals

IntroductionCyberattacks are one of the most widespread, damaging, and disruptive forms of action against healthcare entities. Data breaches, ransomware attacks, and other intrusions can lead to significant cost both in monetary and personal harm to those affected and may result in large payouts to cyber criminals, crashes of information technology systems, leaks of protected health and personal information, as well as fines and lawsuits. This study is a descriptive analysis of healthcare-related cyber breaches affecting 500 or more individuals in the past decade in the United States. MethodsThe publicly available U.S. breach report database was downloaded in the Microsoft Excel (Microsoft, Redmond, Washington, USA) format and searched for all reported breaches occurring between January 1, 2011 - December 31, 2021 (10 years). Breaches were subdivided by category and analyzed by states, breach submission dates, types of breach, location of breached information, entity type, and individuals affected. All subcategories were predefined by the breach report. ResultsThere were a total of 3822 PHI breaches that affected 283,335,803 people in the United States from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2021. Of the 3822 PHI breaches, 1593 (41.7%) were hacking/ IT related, 1055 (27.6%) were listed as unknown, 819 (21.4%) were theft related, 194 (5.1%) were loss related, 97 (2.5%) were related to improper disposal and 64 (1.7%) were listed as “others”. Year 2020 saw the most breaches with 631 and California was the state with the highest number of breaches at 403. ConclusionCyberattacks and healthcare breaches are one of the most costly and disruptive situations facing healthcare today. A total of 3822 breaches affecting 283,335,803 people in the United States were recorded from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2021. By understanding the extent of cyberthreats this will better prepare healthcare organizations and providers to mitigate, respond, and recover from these devastating attacks.

Impact Analysis of Web Application Firewall on Website-Based Application Security (Case Study PPDB Kak Seto School Website)

The swift advancement of web-based applications has posed security challenges. Insufficient security awareness among web developers has resulted in a surge of cybercrime incidents due to website vulnerabilities. To counter this, implementing a Web Application Firewall (WAF) is proposed for the vulnerable PPDB Sekolah Kak Seto website, aiming to mitigate threats in the public network. The WAF acts as a defense against potential cyber breaches. Employing an experimental approach, this research encompasses identification, observation, literature review, analysis of WAF system requirements, implementation, testing, and pre/post-implementation analysis using ModSecurity as the security system. The study analyzes the impact of WAF adoption and provides recommendations for enhancing security. Findings demonstrate WAF's effectiveness in fortifying the Kak Seto School web application by efficiently identifying and blocking potential attacks, thereby reducing breach success rates. Post-WAF implementation, Pingdom tests show a slight drop in Performance Grade (70 to 69) and a minor increase in Load Time (2.76 to 3.23 seconds). GTmetrix tests reveal a Grade downgrade from B to C and an increase in Largest Contentful Paint time (2.2 to 2.7 seconds). In conclusion, despite minor performance effects, WAF significantly enhances security, as evident in improved loading times during tests.

Cyber violence- impact of the buturgă case versus romania on national law

The European Court of Human Rights pointed out that cyber violence was currently recognized as an aspect of violence against women and girls, and that it could take on a variety of forms, including cyber breaches of privacy, intrusion into the victim’s computer, and the capture, sharing, and manipulation of data and images, including private data. In Romania, the cyber violence term was defined following the adoption of Law no 106/2020 amending the Law no.217/2003 on preventing and combating domestic violence, and represents the first step in its regulation.

Predictive Taxonomy Analytics (LASSO): Predicting Outcome Types of Cyber Breach

Abstract Cyber breaches are costly for the global economy and extensive efforts have gone into improving the cybersecurity infrastructure. There are numerous types of cyber breaches that vary greatly in terms of cause and impact, resulting in an extensive literature for individual cyber breach type. Our paper seeks to provide a general framework that can be easily applied to analyze different types of cyber breaches. Our framework is inspired by the taxonomy approach in the cybersecurity literature, where it was proposed that an effective set of taxonomy can provide a direction on supporting improved decision-making in cyber risk management and selecting relevant cybersecurity controls. Our paper extends upon the current approach by using this taxonomy to model and predict the associated breach outcomes, given the occurrence of a cyber breach. Specifically, our paper applies least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) within a taxonomy framework. Using a proprietary database of known cyber breaches, we show that this analytical tool performs well in out-of-sample predictions and a stable model that generates consistent predictions. For each cyber breach outcome type, we also provide the list of keywords that are useful in predicting the outcome type. We envision researchers, insurers, underwriters, and cybersecurity professionals can use (or expand on) our list of keywords, or use our method to yield their own set of keywords. Practitioners who seek to mitigate their cyber risk may use these keywords as a guide towards the specific attack surfaces that might be most susceptible to the corresponding breach. Our paper lays the groundwork for researchers to better apply the taxonomy approach within cybersecurity research. We also perform regression analysis to identify industries that are most susceptible to various cyber breach events. Our results corroborate with the literature, where some industries are indeed more likely to be impacted by certain types of cyberattacks.

An Analysis of Cyber Breaches and Effects on Shareholder Wealth

Cyber data breaches are an evolving risk facing all firms and threatens their ability to conduct business activity. Due to a lack of available information, very little is known about the frequency and severity of data breaches and the financial markets’ responses to them. This study uses a unique proprietary data set that includes cyber data breach information for 3,992 publicly traded firms during the 1990 to 2019 period. We find cyber breaches vary with time and cyber criminals focus on particular industries, types of information, access sources, and countries. We find significant short run negative abnormal returns around the announcement of cyber events and larger negative returns in industries with higher frequencies of attacks and attacks involving personal financial information. Additionally, we find increasing negative cumulative abnormal returns up to 250 days after the announcement.

CYBERSECURITY IN U.S. AND NIGERIA BANKING AND FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS: REVIEW AND ASSESSING RISKS AND ECONOMIC IMPACTS

The digital transformation of the global financial landscape has brought forth unprecedented opportunities and challenges, particularly in the realm of cybersecurity. This paper delves into the intricate dynamics of cybersecurity within the banking sectors of two pivotal players in the global economy: the United States (U.S.) and Nigeria. Through a comprehensive exploration, the study underscores the profound significance of robust cybersecurity measures in safeguarding the integrity and security of financial institutions in today’s interconnected digital age. The research begins with a deep dive into the background of cybersecurity in financial institutions, revealing the escalating importance of digital defenses, especially in an era marked by frequent and sophisticated cyber threats. The interconnectedness of today’s financial systems and the rise of digital transactions amplifies cyber breaches’ potential risks and economic impacts. A comparative study of the U.S. and Nigerian banking systems showcases the unique challenges and solutions each country’s financial institutions face. While the U.S. grapples with issues like money laundering and the need for increased competition, Nigeria’s banking landscape is influenced by factors such as the potential of Islamic banking and the challenges of financial inclusion. Emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, are highlighted as cybersecurity game-changers. Their ability to predict, detect, and respond to threats in real-time offers a promising avenue for enhancing digital defenses. However, the paper also cautions that with technological advancements come new challenges, as adversaries too harness these technologies for more sophisticated attacks. The paper concludes with a forward-looking perspective, emphasizing the need for continuous investment in research, collaboration, education, and agile policymaking. It advocates for a unified approach, where financial institutions, regulatory bodies, and cybersecurity firms work in tandem to ensure the security and trustworthiness of the financial sectors in both nations. In essence, this research provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of cybersecurity in the banking sectors of the U.S. and Nigeria, offering insights and recommendations for fortifying defenses and ensuring financial stability in the digital age.