Abhishek Singh

Identifying factors of “organizational information security management”

Purpose – Despite many technically sophisticated solutions, managing information security has remained a persistent challenge for organizations. Emerging IT/ICT media have posed new security challenges to business information and information assets. It is felt that technical solutions alone are not sufficient to address the information security challenge. It has been argued that organizations also need to consider the management aspects of information security. Consequently, literature, especially in the last decade, has witnessed various scholarly works in this direction. Therefore, a synthesis exercise is required to bring clarity on categorizing the issues of organizational information security management (ISM) to take the research forward. The purpose of this paper is to identify management factors that address organizational information security challenges. Design/methodology/approach – Using a mix method approach, the paper adopts the qualitative (keyword analysis and experts’ opinion) and quantitat...

Identifying critical infrastructure sectors and their dependencies: An Indian scenario

Abstract Across the globe, critical infrastructures constantly face the risk of cyber and/or other attacks from hostile and malicious entities as well as damage inflicted by natural disasters. This paper seeks to identify the critical infrastructure sectors of a country, namely India, and to explore the dependencies existing among them. The research draws on the extant literature as well as expert opinion and judgments to identify the critical infrastructure sectors. Following this, the interpretive structural modeling (ISM) technique is employed to discover the relationships and dependencies existing among the identified critical infrastructure sectors. Next, cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) analysis is used to categorize the critical infrastructure sectors into four sub-groups based on their driving power and dependence on other sectors. Policy implications for government entities and businesses in India are also discussed.

Analyses of issues of information security in Indian context

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to attempt to fill the need to identify critical information security issues at national level, both technical and social in the Indian context, and create a framework of these issues to provide interesting managerial insights about their hierarchy. Current literature advocates relevance of both technical and social issues in a potential framework to address national and organizational information security concerns. Such a framework can guide users in developing insight for strategy in the maize of important information security issues and their intricate interdependency. Design/methodology/approach – Delphi methodology is used to identify a set of topical issues with help from members of a cyber security group. These issues are further analyzed using Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) to impose order and direction to the complex relationships among them. Findings – The analysis using ISM creates a framework of these issues and provides interesting managerial ins...

e-Readiness: Its Relational Perspectives with Profile of Extension Functionaries

ICT can play an important role in some of the important areas especially agricultural extension activities, promoting market-led extension, sustainable agriculture development and participatory researches in extension services, are Information technology can help by enabling the extension workers to gather, store, retrieve and disseminate a broad range of information needed by farmers, thus transforming the extension workers into knowledge workers. There are many factors that contribute to the e-readiness of a nation, but it is important to determine through data-based investigations the factors that actually contribute to the e-readiness progress of a nation, particularly in the developing countries. An attempt has been made to study the variables influencing the e-readiness at the individual and the institutional level of Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) in Uttar Pradesh. Functionaries of the KVKs were selected as respondents of the study based on the whole enumeration method. Variables like experience, innovation proneness, organisational climate and decision-making pattern were found to be correlated with the overall institutional e-readiness of KVKs. The variables age, job performance and mass media exposure were found to be highly correlated with e-readiness as compared to others variables. It was found that less experienced and young professionals are more e-ready compared to old and experienced professionals. Job satisfaction was found to be a more influencing variable having positive significant correlation with ereadiness of NGO KVK professionals. Variables like age, experience, job satisfaction, job performance, organisational climate, decision-making pattern and mass media exposure were correlated with the overall individual e-readiness of KVK respondents.

e-Readiness 4D: An Analysis

e-Readiness (electronic readiness) assesses the quality of a countrys information communication technology (ICT) infrastructure and the ability of its consumers, businesses and governments to use ICT to their benefit. In the context of agriculture, an effort was made to conceptualise the issue at individual and institutional level. The pre-requisite for incorporating ICTs in agricultural development is e-ready extension educationist (EE), e-ready extension service provider (ESP) and e-ready farmer (EF). The e-ready EEs can cater to the information needs of ESPs and farmers. They can be pivotal agents in transforming the farmer EF. The EF thus can have access to the ‘information’, the key input for agricultural production process. Keeping the issues associated with Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) and e-readiness, a study was planned with the objective of analysing the extent of e-readiness of KVK functionaries. The extent of e-readiness of the respondents becomes basic indicator of future possibilities. The study was conducted in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. Whole enumeration method was adopted. A total of 268 functionaries constituted sample of the study. Correlation and multiple regression analysis were used to analyse relational perspectives with profile of functionaries of KVKs. The study reveals the readiness of functionaries with respect to five elements of e-readiness. It is evident from the study that 81.06 per cent of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) KVKs were e-ready followed by 78.37 per cent of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) (KVKs) and 75.38 per cent had of State Agricultural Universities (SAUs) (KVKs). On the contrary, in case of e-readiness gap, a maximum gap of 24.61 per cent was found in SAU KVKs followed by 21.65 per cent in ICAR KVKs and 18.94 per cent in NGO KVKs. The e-readiness of KVKs revealed that 78.25 per cent were found to be e-ready, and 21.74 are having e-readiness gap.

e-Readiness for Agricultural Development

Experiential acquisition of knowledge is the most proper form of information attainment. Information seeking is thus a natural and necessary mechanism of human existence. The present era is the era of information and knowledge revolution. Many electronic resources are available. The increase in information availability on the web has affected information seeking behavior. To provide empirical evidence to the concept, an attempt was made to understand the process of ‘m-learning’ of farmers in Shivarajpur block of Kanpur district. The respondents (75) were analysed using before after method of experimental design. The study revealed that there was significant difference in gain in knowledge in seeds and sowing, plant protection measures and harvesting and marketing aspects. Extension professionals were ready to provide services and at the same time farmers were ready to accept services which are of their need. All these aspects where the difference was significant in the areas which are directly related to market. The study indicates that farmers are becoming e-ready, the beginning is through mobile services. In due course of time they will be prepare themselves for e-mediated extension services. Hence, the study conceptualized e-readiness as “e-readiness is the degree to which an individual is able to afford information and communication technology tools and techniques, possess Skill of application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools and techniques for his/her development and he/she can access the communication tools and has the necessary infrastructure and policy support to exploit the potentials of ICT”. The primary level of readiness includes the individual e-readiness, then the institutional, the state or the nation will automatically become in the “ready”.

Security issues in government portals: an Indian scenario

While we witness an increasing number of government websites day-by-day, the user experience with the various government websites is not uniform. This emanates from different technology standards, design layouts, navigation architecture, functionality, etc. This is one major impediment in making government website usage by citizens pervasive. Again, websites, both government and otherwise are frequently subjected to hacking, privacy violations, and defacement. Thus, such kinds of cyber attacks compromise the information security and privacy of data/information available on web portals. The meaningfulness of web portals as a medium to reach-out to citizens is lost in such a case. As an exploratory study, this paper examines various information security challenges in Indian Government web portals, and the initiatives taken to combat these challenges by various Indian Government departments, agencies and organisations.

Hybrid Detector for Ship Radiated Signal in Statistically Varying Underwater Noise

The problem of passive detection of ship radiated signals has been investigated for many years. A primary lacuna in most detectors is that they are optimal for a specific signal and noise environment, which deviates significantly from the practical signal and noise encountered in the ocean medium. Furthermore, underwater signal and noise statistics varies significantly over time and space, thereby deteriorating the performance of the detectors that are tuned to be optimal for a particular signal and noise assumption. Therefore, a single detector does not seem sufficient in detecting the signal in this statistically varying environment. Here, we consider several detectors that are individually optimal in a given scenario, and then combine these individual optimal detectors to formulate a hybrid detector that performs reasonably well for a large range of noise statistics. Simulation results show that the hybrid detector performs better than its constituent detectors.