Lynsay A. Shepherd

Jamie O'Hare, Lynsay A. Shepherd

Despite significant popularity, the bug bounty process has remained broadly unchanged since its inception, with limited implementation of gamification aspects. Existing literature recognises that current methods generate intensive resource demands, and can encounter issues impacting program effectiveness. This paper proposes a novel bug bounty process aiming to alleviate resource demands and mitigate inherent issues. Through the additional crowdsourcing of report verification where fellow hackers perform vulnerability verification and reproduction, the client organisation can reduce overheads at the cost of rewarding more participants. The incorporation of gamification elements provides a substitute for monetary rewards, as well as presenting possible mitigation of bug bounty program effectiveness issues. Collectively, traits of the proposed process appear appropriate for resource and budget-constrained organisations - such Higher Education institutions.

Lynsay A. Shepherd, Stefano De Paoli, Jim Conacher

The number of cyber-attacks are continuing to rise globally. It is therefore vital for organisations to develop the necessary skills to secure their assets and to protect critical national infrastructure. In this short paper, we outline upon human-computer interaction elements which should be considered when developing a cybersecurity training platform, in an effort to maintain levels of user engagement. We provide an overview of existing training platforms before covering specialist cyber ranges. Aspects of human-computer interaction are noted with regards to their relevance in the context of cyber ranges. We conclude with design suggestions when developing a cyber range platform.

Harjinder Singh Lallie, Lynsay A. Shepherd, Jason R. C. Nurse et al.

The COVID-19 pandemic was a remarkable unprecedented event which altered the lives of billions of citizens globally resulting in what became commonly referred to as the new-normal in terms of societal norms and the way we live and work. Aside from the extraordinary impact on society and business as a whole, the pandemic generated a set of unique cyber-crime related circumstances which also affected society and business. The increased anxiety caused by the pandemic heightened the likelihood of cyber-attacks succeeding corresponding with an increase in the number and range of cyber-attacks. This paper analyses the COVID-19 pandemic from a cyber-crime perspective and highlights the range of cyber-attacks experienced globally during the pandemic. Cyber-attacks are analysed and considered within the context of key global events to reveal the modus-operandi of cyber-attack campaigns. The analysis shows how following what appeared to be large gaps between the initial outbreak of the pandemic in China and the first COVID-19 related cyber-attack, attacks steadily became much more prevalent to the point that on some days, 3 or 4 unique cyber-attacks were being reported. The analysis proceeds to utilise the UK as a case study to demonstrate how cyber-criminals leveraged key events and governmental announcements to carefully craft and design cyber-crime campaigns.

Tolga Ünlü, Lynsay A. Shepherd, Natalie Coull et al.

Software applications are subject to an increasing number of attacks, resulting in data breaches and financial damage. Many solutions have been considered to help mitigate these attacks, such as the integration of attack-awareness techniques. In this paper, we propose a taxonomy illustrating how existing attack awareness techniques can be integrated into applications. This work provides a guide for security researchers and developers, aiding them when choosing the approach which best fits the needs of their application.

Sam Scholefield, Lynsay A. Shepherd

Due to the prevalence of online services in modern society, such as internet banking and social media, it is important for users to have an understanding of basic security measures in order to keep themselves safe online. However, users often do not know how to make their online interactions secure, which demonstrates an educational need in this area. Gamification has grown in popularity in recent years and has been used to teach people about a range of subjects. This paper presents an exploratory study investigating the use of gamification techniques to educate average users about password security, with the aim of raising overall security awareness. To explore the impact of such techniques, a role-playing quiz application (RPG) was developed for the Android platform to educate users about password security. Results gained from the work highlighted that users enjoyed learning via the use of the password application, and felt they benefitted from the inclusion of gamification techniques. Future work seeks to expand the prototype into a full solution, covering a range of security awareness issues.

Calum C. Hall, Lynsay A. Shepherd, Natalie Coull

Web applications are relied upon by many for the services they provide. It is essential that applications implement appropriate security measures to prevent security incidents. Currently, web applications focus resources towards the preventative side of security. Whilst prevention is an essential part of the security process, developers must also implement a level of attack awareness into their web applications. Being able to detect when an attack is occurring provides applications with the ability to execute responses against malicious users in an attempt to slow down or deter their attacks. This research seeks to improve web application security by identifying malicious behaviour from within the context of web applications using our tool BlackWatch. The tool is a Python-based application which analyses suspicious events occurring within client web applications, with the objective of identifying malicious patterns of behaviour. Based on the results from a preliminary study, BlackWatch was effective at detecting attacks from both authenticated, and unauthenticated users. Furthermore, user tests with developers indicated BlackWatch was user friendly, and was easy to integrate into existing applications. Future work seeks to develop the BlackWatch solution further for public release.

Adam Rapley, Xavier Bellekens, Lynsay A. Shepherd et al.

Writing desktop applications in JavaScript offers developers the opportunity to write cross-platform applications with cutting edge capabilities. However in doing so, they are potentially submitting their code to a number of unsanctioned modifications from malicious actors. Electron is one such JavaScript application framework which facilitates this multi-platform out-the-box paradigm and is based upon the Node.js JavaScript runtime --- an increasingly popular server-side technology. In bringing this technology to the client-side environment, previously unrealized risks are exposed to users due to the powerful system programming interface that Node.js exposes. In a concerted effort to highlight previously unexposed risks in these rapidly expanding frameworks, this paper presents the Mayall Framework, an extensible toolkit aimed at JavaScript security auditing and post-exploitation analysis. The paper also exposes fifteen highly popular Electron applications and demonstrates that two thirds of applications were found to be using known vulnerable elements with high CVSS scores. Moreover, this paper discloses a wide-reaching and overlooked vulnerability within the Electron Framework which is a direct byproduct of shipping the runtime unaltered with each application, allowing malicious actors to modify source code and inject covert malware inside verified and signed applications without restriction. Finally, a number of injection vectors are explored and appropriate remediations are proposed.

Lynsay A. Shepherd, Jacqueline Archibald

A lack of awareness surrounding secure online behaviour can lead to end-users, and their personal details becoming vulnerable to compromise. This paper describes an ongoing research project in the field of usable security, examining the relationship between end-user-security behaviour, and the use of affective feedback to educate end-users. Part of the aforementioned research project considers the link between categorical information users reveal about themselves online, and the information users believe, or report that they have revealed online. The experimental results confirm a disparity between information revealed, and what users think they have revealed, highlighting a deficit in security awareness. Results gained in relation to the affective feedback delivered are mixed, indicating limited short-term impact. Future work seeks to perform a long-term study, with the view that positive behavioural changes may be reflected in the results as end-users become more knowledgeable about security awareness.

Karen Renaud, Lynsay A. Shepherd

It is important for organisations to ensure that their privacy policies are General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliant, and this has to be done by the May 2018 deadline. However, it is also important for these policies to be designed with the needs of the human recipient in mind. We carried out an investigation to find out how best to achieve this. We commenced by synthesising the GDPR requirements into a checklist-type format. We then derived a list of usability design guidelines for privacy notifications from the research literature. We augmented the recommendations with other findings reported in the research literature, in order to confirm the guidelines. We conclude by providing a usable and GDPR-compliant privacy policy template for the benefit of policy writers.

Lynsay A. Shepherd, Karen Renaud

It is important to design browser security and privacy alerts so as to maximise their value to the end user, and their efficacy in terms of communicating risk. We derived a list of design guidelines from the research literature by carrying out a systematic review. We analysed the papers both quantitatively and qualitatively to arrive at a comprehensive set of guidelines. Our findings aim to to provide designers and developers with guidance as to how to construct privacy and security alerts. We conclude by providing an alert template,highlighting its adherence to the derived guidelines.