Modern day organizations face a continuous challenge in ensuring that their employees are cognizant with malware and cyber attacks, since it has the potential to cause financial, legal, and reputational damage to them. Current awareness training exists in a multitude of forms to equip employees and organizations to protect themselves against…

In mid-July 2020, the social media site Twitter had over 100 of its most prominent user accounts start to tweet requests to send Bitcoin to specified Bitcoin wallets. The requests promised that the Bitcoin senders would receive their money back doubled, as a gesture of charity amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The attack appears to have been carried…

The current study proposes a taxonomy to organize existing knowledge on cybercrimes against critical infrastructure such as power plants, water treatment facilities, dams, and nuclear facilities. Routine Activity Theory is used to inform a three-dimensional taxonomy with the following dimensions: hacker motivation (likely offender), cyber,…

There is a significant skill gap, with millions of cybersecurity jobs still needing to be fulfilled due to a lack of a trained workforce. Various academic programs are available that teach students in different aspects of cybersecurity. This paper investigates if the title of an IT program has any impact on the desirability of a program and if…

Private-sector and public-sector organizations have increasingly built specific business units for securing company assets, reputation, and lives, known as "security operations centers" (SOCs). Depending on the organization, these centers may also be referred to as global security operations centers, "cybersecurity" operations…

The goal of this research is to describe an active learning opportunity that was conducted as a community service offering through our Center for Cybersecurity Education and Applied Research (CCEAR). As a secondary goal, the participants sought to gain real world experience by applying techniques and concepts studied in security classes. A local…

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of schools across the nation, many K-12 schools moved from in-person to remote education, increasing their dependence on IT and making them potentially more vulnerable to cyberattacks. Education Facilities, including K-12 schools, is one of the nation's critical infrastructure subsectors. Several…

This study examined the role of resilience in the lives of cyberbullying perpetrators and their victims. Turkish adolescents (n = 444; 245 girls, 55.2%, and 199 boys, 44.8%) 15-19 years of age (mean age of 16.58 years, SD = 0.789) were recruited from different high schools. The participants completed the Cyberbullying Scale (Aricak, Kinay, &…

This case study follows the security breach that affected Target at the end of 2013 and resulted in the loss of financial data for over 70 million customers. The case provides an overview of the company and describes the reasons that led to one of the biggest security breaches in history. It offers a discussion on Target's vendor management…

Nigeria is considered by many to be a cyber crime hot spot, and is often ranked among the world's top cyber crime committing countries (e.g. advanced fee fraud is also known as Nigerian scams and 419 scams--419 is a section under the Nigerian Criminal Code Act that prohibits obtaining goods by false pretences). We designed a cyber crime prevention…

Over the past three years, California State University, Bakersfield received NSF funding to support hands-on explorations in "network security" and "cryptography" through Research Experience Vitalizing Science-University Program (REVS-UP). In addition to the summer bridge component, the grant included development of…

Recent meta-analyses indicate that bully prevention programs produce minimal change in student behavior. This study examined 66 high school teachers' perceptions regarding the effect of cyberbullying on students, which intervening strategies teachers would use when dealing with cyberbullying, and which prevention strategies would assist in…

The objective of this study is to develop and test a model of online protection behaviour, particularly regarding the use of virus protection. Hypotheses are proposed concerning the predictors of the intention to engage in virus protection behaviour. Using a survey of 273 college students who use the Internet, a test of the hypotheses is conducted…

The Internet has experienced phenomenal growth in higher education. In addition to many pedagogical benefits, there are potential risks to the student users, including identity theft. This study examined the extent to which selected online practices that could minimize the risk of financial identity theft are used by college students. Data were…