Jacques Ophoff

The Use of Mobile Phones by South African University Students

Mobile phones are an integral part of our modern lives. This study explores the use and role of mobile phones among South African university students. Four main categories are used to examine the students’ mobile phone use: reasons to use mobile phones, pattern of mobile phone use, purchasing factors, and behaviour-related issues. Through a quantitative approach data was collected from 362 participants using a survey. The key findings indicate that the main reason South African university students (mainly from the University of Cape Town) use a mobile phone is for socializing, as well as for safety and privacy purposes. Usability and price emerged as the top purchasing factors. The respondents showed some signs of addiction to their mobile phones. Differences in mobile phone use by gender were found, with female students showing increased mobile phone use for safety and socializing, interest in brand and trends, as well as signs of addiction. The findings could prove beneficial to marketers, mobile phone developers, universities, parents, and researchers exploring mobile phone adoption and usage pattern in a developing country such as South Africa.

Security awareness and adoption of security controls by smartphone users

Growth in smartphone functionality and adoption makes such devices tempting targets for criminals. The device, but to a greater extent the information it contains, presents a valuable target for attack. It is therefore critical for smartphone users to take precautionary measures against threats, which may come from potential criminals or negligence by the user. Measures include awareness of vulnerabilities and threats as well as adoption of security controls. This study adds to the body of knowledge in this area by empirically exploring these measures. Using a survey approach an analysis of 510 respondents examines security awareness and adoption of security controls. Previous studies claim that smartphone users do not possess good security awareness, which was mostly not the case in our sample. We report on perceived efficacy and adoption of authentication and anti-theft controls, finding several correlations with smartphone OS, language, and gender. We propose that user education using a simple, non-technical design is key to encourage security awareness and adoption of security controls, especially in emerging markets.

A Descriptive Literature Review and Classification of Insider Threat Research

Insider threat is an information security problem. It specifically refers to the users of an information system exploiting their legitimate access rights to that system, in order to perform malicious acts. The purpose of this paper is to describe the body of knowledge of insider threat research through a descriptive literature review. The scope of the report is academic research articles. The objective of this study is to create a classification of insider threat research. This was achieved by gathering relevant journal articles and categorizing them. A classification was created, comprising five main categories: ‘Insider Threat Mitigation’, ‘Theoretical Perspectives’, ‘Insider Threat Management’, ‘Insider Threat Overview’ and ‘Insider Threat Behavior’. The key findings are that the main volume of research is currently concentrated in the ‘Theoretical Perspectives’ and Insider ‘Threat Mitigation’ categories. Comparatively, there is very little research in any of the other categories, with ‘Insider Threat Management’ being particularly sparse. There is a clear opportunity for future research in the three under-researched areas, particularly in ‘Insider Threat Management’, where there are numerous frameworks and standards to use as research guidelines.

Exploring the Impact of Cyber Incivility in the Workplace

The world is an interconnected global village due to the increasing adoption and reliance on technology, but an ugly side of the increased usage of technology has come to light. The issue of harassment and abuse on the internet has led to relatively new issues such as cyber harassment, cyber incivility and cyberbullying. A case study was conducted within two faculties at the University of Cape Town (UCT). The research objectives were: to find out how staff members in a workplace have experienced cyber incivility, to find out what effects cyber incivility has on employees, to find out what the motivations are for staff participation in cyber incivility, and to find out what policies a workplace should have in place in order to deal with cyber incivility. The data collected shows that there have been occurrences of cyber harassment and cyber incivility among staff members at UCT. The following effects were found to be consistent with cyber harassment and cyber incivility: decrease in productivity and a toxic working environment. On an individual basis: anger, negative feelings and feelings of inferiority, feeling demotivated, feelings of fear and intimidation, feeling emotional and upset, irritation, loss of self-esteem, stress and wasted time.

Aspects of Digital Forensics in South Africa

This paper explores the issues facing digital forensics in South Africa. It examines particular cyber threats and cyber threat levels for South Africa and the challenges in addressing the cybercrimes in the country through digital forensics. The paper paints a picture of the cy-bercrime threats facing South Africa and argues for the need to develop a skill base in digi-tal forensics in order to counter the threats through detection of cybercrime, by analyzing cybercrime reports, consideration of current legislation, and an analysis of computer foren-sics course provision in South African universities. The paper argues that there is a need to develop digital forensics skills in South Africa through university programs, in addition to associated training courses. The intention in this paper is to promote debate and discussion in order to identify the cyber threats to South Africa and to encourage the development of a framework to counter the threats – through legislation, high tech law enforcement structures and protocols, digital forensics education, digital forensics skills development, and a public and business awareness of cybercrime threats.

Investigating the accuracy of base station information for estimating cellphone location

An important feature of cellphones is that their location can be determined. As long as the cellphone is powered on, the location of the cellphone can always be traced to at least the cell from which it is receiving, or last received, signal from the cellular network. Such, network based, methods of estimating the location of a cellphone is useful in cases where the cellphone user is unable or unwilling to reveal his or her location. This paper investigates the accuracy of using base station information for estimating the location of cellphones. Through quantitative data analysis large variations between the best and worst accuracy of recorded base station locations are exposed. Thus, depending on the requirements, base station locations may or may not be accurate enough for a particular application.

Are University Students Ready to Dump Their Textbooks?: A Survey on Student Attitudes Towards E-Readers and Tablet Computers

Todays students are accustomed to a world where information is available on-demand, anywhere and anytime. They bring this expectation to their academic world where they want to work cooperatively and flexibly, using the modern information processing tools and access with which they are familiar. New hardware platforms such as e-Readers and tablet computers have made substantial inroads in the consumer market. E-Readers are becoming more prevalent in universities-replacing the need for physical textbooks, lecturing notes and other academic documents. Many universities are now running pilot programs, while some are already using e-Readers. Tablet computers, apart from their ability to read, edit or create various types of information documents, also offer additional features such as collaborative and social networking services. This empirical research project investigated student perspectives on the educational use of e-Readers and tablets within the University of Cape Town. A questionnaire was distributed to a significant portion of the student population and stratified according to seniority and faculty. Quantitative data was gathered and analysed on themes ranging from awareness to preferences to facilitating conditions around e-Readers within the academic environment. The students sent a clear signal: that they are keen to embrace these new technologies and the advantages they offer. E-Books can be updated automatically and downloaded to e-Readers instantly from almost anywhere in the world. Students feel they would benefit greatly through the use of e-Readers and many believe they are set to replace books completely. Having access to a portable library of information in their backpacks would benefit both students and the environment. However, there are a number of barriers to the comprehensive introduction of these technologies, including the cost of the devices; cost, rights and file format of e-books; the need for a critical mass of textbooks available in digital format and device characteristics such as battery life, and ubiquitous Wi-Fi access.

Privacy: A review of publication trends

The huge growth in digital data and the commercialisation of personal information has brought privacy to the forefront of world legislation. The impact and growth of the Internet, digitisation of data, network connectivity and data sharing has required a number of new threats to be addressed. As the technological environment has expanded since the 1960s and the use of electronic commerce has become more ubiquitous, so the concern around privacy and personal information protection has increased. Privacy is important at various levels and allows people to develop their individuality apart from the groups to which they belong and offers them the ability to decide what face they want others to see. Based on the recent Snowden leaks there is currently a heightened interest in privacy and related issues worldwide. The IEEE Security & Privacy magazine is one of the leading publications devoted to privacy, providing articles with both a practical and research focus by leading thinkers within the security and privacy field. The magazine has a broad audience which includes practitioners, researchers and policy-makers. The objective of this paper is to provide a systematic review of how privacy has been reported in the magazine over the past decade. The paper examines the shifts of privacy within the information security domain, with particular interest to the past three years which have seen revisions and amendments in various national privacy policies. In addition to reviewing the magazine there is input from the magazines current editor, who shares her views and insights on both the magazine and privacy in general. Findings show that over the period 2011-2013, privacy articles were predom inantly driven by academ ic research, with the majority of security articles coming from within industry. There is little evidence that privacy has become a more dominant topic over the past ten years. While data loss and security breaches have escalated over the past decade the topic of privacy has taken second place to security.