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CERIAS Security Seminar: The Role of Culture in Cybersecurity

The Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security
February 12, 2020
4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
STEW G52 (Suite 050B), West Lafayette Campus

Description

Speaker:
Char Sample
Idaho National Lab

Abstract: Distinguished social psychologist GeertHofstede observed the “dominanceof technology over culture is an illusion. The software of the machines may beglobalized, but the software of the minds that use them is not.”  The role of culture in the thought process isso prevalent, yet unstated, that many cultural beliefs and biases are acceptedas truths.  These cultural beliefs andbiases are commonly infused into behavioral norms identifying behaviors thatcan be observed.  While historically,these observations have taken place in the physical realm, this talk discussesthe findings of cultural markers in the cyber realm.

Dr. Samplepresents and discusses recent interdisciplinary, evidence-based research usingculture-based models of various cyber actors (attackers, defenders and victims)to explain observations in cybersecurity behaviors. These studies wereperformed over the past several years using public data found in the Zone-Harchives. The mining of the Zone-H archives with over 10 million records of rawdata allowed for research into behaviors, choices and reasons. By usingHofstede’s cultural framework to define culture along with some basicinferential statistics, specific digital identifiers were associated withcultural dimensions, allowing for more accurate modeling of cyber actors basedon cultural values.  The resultssupported Nisbett’s observation that people “think the way they do because ofthe nature of the societies they live in”.

Thediscussion centers on the six dimensions of culture, the values associated witheach dimension and examples of those values in cyber space. The six culturaldimensions measure views on values of self-determination, collectivism, aggression,nurturing, uncertain outcomes, holism, instant gratification, and levels ofsocietal openness.  The behavioral traitsthat associate with the cultural values are behavioral traits that are consistentwith cyber behaviors.


About:
Dr. Char Sample is the Chief Cybersecurity ResearchScientist for the Cybercore division at Idaho National Laboratory. Dr. Sampleis a visiting academic at the University of Warwick, Coventry, UK and a guestlecturer at Bournemouth University, Rensselaer Polytechnic University and RoyalHolloway University. Dr. Sample has over 20 years experience in the informationsecurity industry. Dr. Sample’s research focuses on deception, and the role of culturalvalues in cybersecurity events. More recently she has begun researching therelationship between human cognition and machines. Presently Dr. Sample iscontinuing research on modeling cyber behaviors by culture, other areas ofresearch are data resilience, cyber-physical systems and industrial controlsystems.

The weekly security seminar has been held every semester since spring of 1992. We invite personnel at Purdue and visitors from outside to present on topics of particular interest to them in the areas of computer and network security, computer crime investigation, information warfare, information ethics, public policy for computing and security, the computing "underground," and other related topics. More info

Contact Details

Event Website

https://www.cerias.purdue.edu/news_and_events/events/security_seminar/details/index/4kn4vp0ir2fedalleclki16q4d@google.com

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