The Forensic Investigation of Misinformation on Social Media

Digital platforms, connectivity, the ubiquity of technology, the increase of information and the prevalence of Online Social Networks (OSN) have overcome traditional challenges and roadblocks, such as physical borders and the constraints of time and distance. This has made the distribution and sharing of information a lot easier and quicker, delivering messages to a wider audience which of course can have immense benefits. However, it also means that public perception of reality can be more easily influenced and distorted by a small number of individuals through the dispersion of misinformation and disinformation. The growing use of social media to the point that it is considered normative and is ingrained in almost every sphere of modern life, including social, business, personal, etc., means that the proliferation of any news, particularly fake news, is highly likely. The COVID-19 pandemic saw the effect of misinformation with large-scale impacts: a misinformed public and misrepresented people, organizations and events. Identifying misinformation has consequently emerged as a critical task. A further deterrent would be the investigation of the source of misinformation and the consequential prosecution of propagators of social media misinformation. © 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

An Investigation into How Smartphones Can Be Secured Against MiTM Attacks: Financial Sector

MiTM attack aims to violate data in transmission through the air medium in a wireless network;MITM exploits compromise data confidentiality and integrity and are conceivably the most productive types of cyberattacks utilised today. The increasing use of personal devices like smartphones connecting to the internet via Wi-Fi has made wireless attacks on users more crucial. The cyber adversary becomes a “middleman” between two targets to intercept private communication, decrypt traffic, and exploit valuable information like bank details and credit cards. The new WPA3 protocol security features such as 256-bit encryption, OWE (Opportunistic Wireless Encryption), Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (SAE), and disallowing outdated legacy protocols provides risk mitigation against attacks. However, vulnerabilities in WPA3 have been reported whereby a device can be downgraded from WPA3 to WPA2, which opens the system up for DoS and MiTM attacks. This research investigates Wi-Fi-based exploits against the ecosystem of smartphones in the financial sector. Aircrack-ng and Ettercap are open-source tools accessible through the Kali Linux framework. These tools are utilised to demonstrate simulated DoS and MiTM attacks to explain the reported WPA3 vulnerabilities. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

The Impact of GDPR Regulations on Cyber Security Effectiveness Whilst Working Remotely

In light of the industry 4 evolution, the concerns regarding the data privacy seemed to rise due to the vast platforms and the adverse impacts that its data protection policies can have on people using it. In 2018, the European Union imposed a regulation called the general data privacy regulation (GDPR). The regulations aimed towards the protection of digital data that was transferred outside of Europe. The regulations focused on the safety of the digital data of users, the security of their data in various digital sites that they are continually sharing. They also aimed to ensure that the privacy laws concerning digital data were vigilant in modifying their rules as the digital technological changes occur in the digital world. The final aim of the GDPR is to certify that regulated legislation is unified in every region of Europe and are being followed and implemented by the digital platforms operating in Europe. As the Pandemic took hold from late 2019, there are questions arising in Europe as how to evaluate the effect of pandemic and the GDPR impact it will have as COVID 19 has forced many to go into a lockdown and as a result work remotely. The research aims to evaluate and measure the impact of GDPR on cyber security effectiveness whilst working remotely. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

A Descriptive Analytics of the Occurrence and Predictive Analytics of Cyber Attacks During the Pandemic

The SARS-CoV-2 (Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) universally and commonly known as COVIT-19 and the across-the-board lockdown measures are having complex and unforeseen effects on intricate social domains, which includes opportunities for offline and online crimes. For some months since March 2020, most countries in the world if not all has been in one lockdown or the other. The lockdown measures have brought increased fear, anxiety, and depression. As if that is not enough, it has also forced the entire world populace to embrace the emergency use of technology to carry out their job functions which was unplanned for in a sit-at-home and work-from-home situation. All these have rendered vast majority of individuals and general populace vulnerable to cyber enabled and cyber dependent crimes. Anytime there is spike in number of crimes committed within a specific period, analysists and researchers seek to know the factor responsible for the increase. In this research, attempt is made to establish the relationship between the COVIT-19 pandemic and the increase in cybercrime. To achieve this, Regression Analysis is being used to study the relationship between the target class, attack class and the cybercrime occurrence. Furthermore, projection is also made using Time Series to see how the situation will look like if this lockdown that some have accepted to be a new-normal, continues like this (God forbids that). © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Combating Human Trafficking: An Analysis of International and Domestic Legislations

Human trafficking is a crime that has devastating impacts on all societies worldwide. Law enforcement and security organisations often encounter many obstacles in their endeavours to combat this crime. Effective measures to tackle human trafficking necessitate the fusion of a wide range of factors which together could produce the desired impact. One of such measures concerns both international and domestic legislations that are fundamental components of any anti-trafficking strategy. Therefore, considering their importance, this paper aims to examine the most notable international instruments as well as the UK’s domestic legislation, namely the Modern Slavery Act 2015, used to combat human trafficking. Based on the findings of this analysis, the paper also provides a set of actionable recommendations with a view to addressing some of the gaps and shortcomings identified in these legislations. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Blockchain Capabilities in Defending Advanced Persistent Threats Using Correlation Technique and Hidden Markov Models (HMM)

In December 2019, the world witnessed the start of a pandemic outbreak (Coronavirus or COVID-19) in Wuhan the capital of China’s Hubei province and from there quickly spread globally. The uncertainty and fear change represented a golden opportunity for threat actors. Early 2020 research discovered widespread evidence that threat actors embraced the COVID-19 fear event to mount Advanced Persistent Threats (APT) attacks and exploit the opportunity exposed by the disruption. Tactics ranging from phishing emails and social engineering to malware distribution have been identified with many malicious domains with medical information that delivered sophisticated malware to the victims’ systems. APTs are incredibly sophisticated, stealthy and remain undetected for potentially long periods. They use zero-day or unknown vulnerabilities and are carried out by adversaries possessing a very high level of expertise and deploying significant resources for the primary purpose of data exfiltration or positioning for long term attack strategies. The current defence security solutions are a combination of Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDPS), Security Operations Centre (SOC), anomaly and heuristic-based endpoint protection systems, etc. However, IDPS face several problems in mitigating APT attacks, such as a lack of historical correlation of attack data, knowledge of defence against known APT attacks stages only. This chapter explores Blockchain distributed technology and its applicability towards cybersecurity defence and explores a new system in defence against APT attacks called Blockchain Advanced Persistent Threat Correlation Detection System (Orion System), implemented as chaincode micro-smart contracts. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

An Investigation into an Approach to Updating the Governance of Satellite Communications to Enhance Cyber Security

The UK is keen to be part of the Global Space market that has seen the recent activities of Virgin Galactic and SpaceX. This research will take into consideration the UKs operability parameters in relation to International Space agreements to investigate whether the Governance surrounding Satellite communications prepares for the new Spaceports that are being developed and the impact on UK Government departments. The research aim for A Qualitative Approach to Updating the Governance of Satellite Communications to Enhance Cyber Security is to produce a set of guidelines to be used for the Governance of Satellite communications through researching the level of Governance that exists for Satellite communications. The research includes which techniques and technology that satellites use, the impact of Governance on Satellite communications within Government departments, COBIT 2019 in Satellites, a review of literature to pinpoint current research of legislation, a critical review of current Government frameworks for satellite communications and what public organisations will be taken into consideration. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.