Towards Zero Trust: The Design and Implementation of a Secure End-Point Device for Remote Working

COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns forced employees across the world to work from home. Remote working has become a necessity rather than a choice. However, in order to meet this increasing demand, the most pressing security concerns of organizations should be addressed. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of ProGun, an end-point device (a USB dongle) for remote working. We present the hardware/software co-design of ProGun, by which most security risks due to lack of physical protection could be mitigated. We also discuss choices we made among many alternatives for user authentication and their security and usability implications in a remote working environment. © 2021 IEEE.

Poll worker security: Assessment and design of usability and performance

Election infrastructure includes socio-technical systems that are designated as United States critical infrastructure within the Government Facilities sector. Following the 2016 United States' General Election and during the 2020 Presidential Election cycle, election security and the integrity of election processes became a prevalent, national conversation. From the 2019 U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report indicating that election systems in all 50 states had been targeted by foreign adversaries to the more recent broadened use of, and concern about, mail-based voting during the COVID-19 pandemic, election integrity is increasingly important. Furthermore, poll workers play a crucial role in elections and election equipment, as they are one of the first lines of defense in systems security. This paper contributes to improving the security of election infrastructure through intentional, targeted, cyber, physical, and insider threat training for poll workers. Specifically, this paper details the engineering design, including pedagogical approach, and deployment of online, election-specific, threat training modules. Results of a System Usability Scale assessment from 44 poll workers indicate the content and online platform are easy to interact with and use. Further, the developed modules were piloted and then deployed in a mid-Atlantic state;participating counties include over 1,900 poll workers who serve nearly 750,000 voters. © 2021 IISE Annual Conference and Expo 2021. All rights reserved.