Tapiwa Gundu
Talk Title:
Big data, big security risks: Human related cybersecurity countermeasures
Talk Abstract:
This talk focuses on big data, which has become a topical issue for academia and industry. Although the term “Big Data” has become popular, there is no general consensus about what it really means. Often, many people would view it as the process of extraction and transformation of large datasets. However, a popular description of Big Data is based on three main attributes of data: volume, velocity, and variety (or 3Vs). Nevertheless, it does not capture all the aspects of Big Data accurately. Based on sources, big data can be divided into three categories: Data coming from people, or the process of people using Internet (such as logs, videos, and pictures), Data coming from computers/servers (for example, multimedia, databases, and documents), and Data collected by various types of digital devices (such as smart city devices, GPS, and cameras).
While big data brings convenience, a lot of inconveniences, such as security and privacy issues, are associated with it. Traditionally, security and privacy directly threaten employees and organisational. In the world of big data, not only are the organisations and employee security and privacy at risk, but there is an additional vector of citizens’ information also at risk. Organisations are now accessing citizens’ sensitive big data sources for analysis and research, usually for prediction of citizens’ statuses and behaviour. For example, property developers can collect and analyse citizens’ spending habits, for example, for decision making when wanting to establish a mall. The risk is further increased by employees’ accessing sensitive big data sources through personally-carried smart devices (for example, phones and watches), which are not well protected. The security of smart devices also needs strengthening: if these devices are lost and end up in the wrong hands, the results could be horrendous.
People are leaving massive amounts of data traces on the Internet daily due to the rapid developments in IoT. This is making it easier for criminals to collect data which will enable them to conduct illegal activities (fraud). Therefore, security and privacy issues in the context of big data require urgent solutions. To date, much of the focus has been on deploying technical countermeasures (such as Firewalls) to repel attackers. However, research in the security and privacy domain demonstrates that, of late, vulnerability is emanating from the naïve owners and users of the big data. Therefore this talk aims at discussing the cybersecurity issues evert big data owner or user should take into account when handling big data and it also presents a framework for cybersecurity awareness and adoption for big data users.
Keywords:
Big Data, Cybersecurity.
Speaker Biography:
Tapiwa Gundu is a senior lecturer at Sol Plaatjie University in South Africa. He is privileged to be among the first data science lecturers on the African continent. His work focuses specifically on the human aspect of cybersecurity in fourth industrial revolution technologies. He holds a PhD from the university of Fort Hare. He has published articles in several journals and has also presented his research at several international conferences.
