CRNov 10, 2021
Cybersecurity Issues and Practices in a Cloud Context: A Comparison Amongst Micro, Small and Medium EnterprisesRuwan Nagahawatta, Sachithra Lokuge, Matthew Warren et al.
The advancement and the proliferation of information systems among enterprises have given rise to understanding cybersecurity. Cybersecurity practices provide a set of techniques and procedures to protect the systems, networks, programs and data from attack, damage, or unauthorised access. Such cybersecurity practices vary and are applied differently to different types of enterprises. The purpose of this research is to compare the critical cybersecurity threats and practices in the cloud context among micro, small, and medium enterprises. By conducting a survey among 289 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in Australia, this study highlights the significant differences in their cloud security practices. It also concludes that future studies that focus on cybersecurity issues and practices in the context of cloud computing should pay attention to these differences.
CRApr 4, 2020
Attacking with bitcoin: Using Bitcoin to Build Resilient Botnet ArmiesDimitri Kamenski, Arash Shaghaghi, Matthew Warren et al.
We focus on the problem of botnet orchestration and discuss how attackers can leverage decentralised technologies to dynamically control botnets with the goal of having botnets that are resilient against hostile takeovers. We cover critical elements of the Bitcoin blockchain and its usage for `floating command and control servers'. We further discuss how blockchain-based botnets can be built and include a detailed discussion of our implementation. We also showcase how specific Bitcoin APIs can be used in order to write extraneous data to the blockchain. Finally, while in this paper, we use Bitcoin to build our resilient botnet proof of concept, the threat is not limited to Bitcoin blockchain and can be generalized.