Week 8 Questions on the Literary Review

Week 8 How has increased adoption of the Internet increased cyber attacks?


1. How has writing a literature review effected the way you might do research in the future?

If I were doing research for a given paper I would likely arrange the outline ahead of doing the research. This way I would find specific items to flush out a specific section of the overall paper.


2. Did you find any part of the literature review writing process difficult?


This week I had a hard time getting the work completed due to 2 weeks of prep work for a major security trade show (RSA) in San Francisco. So I had to find time to do the work between meetings. On top of that with the papers I found being heavily driven towards facts and statistics I found it harder to due a review of the content.


3. How has your understanding and knowledge of the topic of your research question expanded due to the analysis you did in writing your literature review?


Most of my work and thinking has been around the cause attacks, method of attack and how to prevent them. The additional content I found on motives was very interesting. I have also known about the hacker economy but this quantified it in ways I had not thought about which will help me explain this to others.

4. What questions do you feel are still left unanswered about your research (it is alright to still have unanswered questions, since research is an ongoing endeavor)?


I would like to find research that cover two main topics. First, what I found talks about the growth in Internet usage but does not cover the explosion of services using the Internet. I would like to see if I can find specific research on that. I would also find research on the increased quantity of malware and vulnerabilities to help quantify the weapons being created.

Week 7 blog post for topic - How has increased adoption of the Internet increased cyber attacks?

Week 7 How has increased adoption of the Internet increased cyber attacks?



1 What new sources did you include in your annotated bibliography and why?

I included two new pieces.  I kept my search primarily to academic papers.  My topic does not have wide spread coverage at the level I need outside of academia.

2 What was the search path you took to locate them?

My search started with the Brandman library.  I reviewed the references in the papers I had already found to generate a list of potential candidates.  Then instead of search for topics I searched by tittle.  After looking through a dozen or so I selected 2 to include in the annotated bibliography.

3 Why do you feel these sources are credible (remember the CRAAP Test)?

Both new additions were released within the last 10 years, appeared in respectable journals, included detailed reference list that supported their data.  Additionally, INFORMATION SECURITY THREATS AND PRACTICES IN SMALL BUSINESSES also included a detailed one on one interviews with small business to generate their data.

4 What aspect(s) of your research question do they address?

Both papers cover additional parameters that are contributing to increased levels of attacks.  One covers the difficulties with normal deterrents preventing cyber attacks.  The second covers computers used by small business, which tend to be configured and secured in a fairly similar manner to home users.  The end users also have similar levels of security awareness, both of which can contribute to increased levels of attack.

5 Are there still aspects of your research question that remain unanswered?
What are some aspects of your research that you feel would be most interesting to a wide audience?

For the most part I have what I need to write a decent paper.  Once I start to write I may be able to take advantage of additional stats around specific internet service growth instead of generic internet usage growth.  I think the information on attack types, cause of attack and attack outcomes will be very interesting to a broad audience.

Week 6 Blog on items such as academic integrity

While I deal with Intellectual Property on a daily basis, what I deal with is around product and brand related issues rather than written concepts.  So some of this was interesting in the differences between how I think about securing software code vs more intellectual endeavors.

What did you learn about plagiarism? 

This is a fairly straight forward.  The new items are around the citations.  In the past when I have used content I have used quotes and footnotes which I thought were clear. Without the proper citations a black and white definition would consider this to be plagiarism.

What is your definition of academic integrity?

Some of these teams can have very explicit definitions, but when you really get down to it a person should know if they are trying to get away with something.  If you are copying someone else’s paper, then you are avoiding doing your own.  Students should do the work, do their own work, and stand behind their work.  This to me shows integrity.

What is your definition of Intellectual Property?

Unlike physical property, there may not be a physical object with Intellectual property.  To me this is any idea, design, or written piece which brings value to someone either by itself or by realizing that idea in a physical object.  For example a Story could be told verbally or could be printed in a book to be made physical.  A consumer would own the book but the author owns the Intellectual property which could be used to write more books.

 What did you learn about Creative Commons?

Only that it works in conjunction with standard copy write to allow content owners to share their content with the public under different terms.

 What are open access journals?

These are peer reviewed papers that are available to readers without having to pay a fee or join a service legally.  They are available via a number of front end search engines on the internet.  Connecting to one of those search engines is the only requirement for accessing the journals.

Week 5 Blog Post

How has increased adoption of the Internet increased cyberattacks?

Kim, W., Jeong, O., Kim, C., & So, J. (2011). The dark side of the Internet: Attacks, costs and responses. Information Systems, 36(3), 675-705. doi:10.1016/j.is.2010.11.003.

This weeks paper looks at the dark side of the Internet and the damages that result including items such as Loss of money, Defamation, Invasion of Privacy, Physical harm, Loss of time, Mental anguish or psychological damage, and increase in crime.  The introduction starts with “The Good the Bad and the Ugly” of the internet.  Most of this is glossing over the good to focus on setting up the bad and the ugly portions.  The paper then goes on to supply a taxonomy of the negative aspects along with a summary of the damages caused.  This taxonomy covers a broad set of the negative aspects which will be useful in my overall research paper.  From the taxonomy the paper moves on to the causes of the Internet’s dark side.  This section was a bit weaker than the others.  The focus is primarily on psychological driven aspects akin to bullying.  It covers very little of the ease of exploitation (e.g. stealing small amounts from very large volumes of users) Much has been done to try and protect against the dark side both technical and non technical.  This is covered in the penultimate section before moving to a brief prognosis of the future which concludes the paper.  Overall I believe the paper will be useful in adding background to my greater research paper.


What new ideas, arguments, and/or phenomena have you been introduced to?

Most of my research has been focused on the facts and figures of Internet usage and the growth of cyber attacks.  This paper focused quite a bit on the psychological aspects of Internet usage.  This would add a good section to the overall research paper.

From what you’ve discovered in these research articles, are you reconsidering the focus of your research question?

I would likely have not added a section to the overall paper had I not found this piece.

Were other studies or resources mentioned in the literature review and references sections that you want to look into? 

This paper more than any of the others had a very long list of reference materials.  In reviewing this for the CRAAP review I did find and examine a few.  I would very likely use some of those references in a longer paper.

How do you feel your research skills are developing so far?

I think the greatest increase I have experienced is having access to review academic papers.  I am using many of the same research skills I use in my day to day life and career.  I am however applying those skills to catalogs I don’t normally have access to.  Additionally, with the number of catalogs available I am using more of the filter components than I would normally.  With a standard Google search I often just tweak my terms and limit the time to the last X days.

Looking for Peer Review Content for Research Topic

How has increased adoption of the Internet increased cyberattacks?

Cong, G., Jianfeng, M., Jingjing, G., Liang, Z., & Xindi, M. (2013). The Inside of Information Security Industry in the Perspective of Hackers and Economics. Journal Of Engineering Science & Technology Review, 6(3), 146-152.

With the advent of many markets a criminal element will move in to exploit the growth.  The cybersecurity realm is no different.  The paper outlines the hacker economy around the collection and commercialization of user information.  The paper first covers the various ways hackers or cyber attackers have come up with to obtain the user information.  From there the paper covers how the information is used to attain money, the structure of the hacker economy and finishes with a discussion of possible countermeasures.

The overall paper offers good information, but focuses vary narrowly on the hacker economy built up around the exploitation of user information economy.  There is no coverage on the selling of exploit tools, zombie networks, 0day vulnerabilities, etc.  So this will add information on the consumer impact during the period of internet growth but I will need additional content for a fuller picture.  This paper covered a number of concepts that I already understood, however the paper was a source of key reference statistics I have not been able to find in other areas.

What knowledge did you gain about your topic as a result of the research you’ve conducted so far?

The use case executed with this paper has been the first statistics I have been able to find that covers the impact of both technology and education have on users being exploited.

What new search strategies did you use to locate your sources? Be specific and refer to the notes you took.

I don’t normally search specifically for academic papers.  So targeting information contained in them was a different approach.  Typically, my searches are targeted and locating content in the body of the content.  I found that searching more for titles was a better way to find the content I was looking for.

What specific aspect of your topic do you want to research further

This paper focused on personal information leakage.  I would like to look at other impacts such as the rise and fall of Denial of Service attacks.

Week 2 Ongoing Research Studies

How has increased adoption of the Internet opened common users to cyberattacks

What I found

United States. National Telecommunications and Information Administration. (2011). Digital nation: Expanding internet usage. [Washington, D.C.]: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Website

Review of What I Found

In last weeks research I found stats from Verizon’s yearly Data Breach Investigations Report that I could pull statistics from on cyberattacks.  Since I want to correlate the type and quantity of attacks with the increased use of the Internet I needed information covering those metrics.  I was able to find this book which comes from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration has worked Economics and Statistics Administration to produce the reports.  The report is based on surveys of over 50,000 households commissioned by NTIA and conducted by the U. S. Census Bureau.   

This report covers the Internet usage and Internet connectivity for the United States.  The report looks in detail at aspects such as what device is used to connect to the Internet and over what connection type the device connected.  Internet usage is broken down across several different social and economical boundaries including: Race and Ethnicity, Age, Education Level and others.  The last half of the report also looks quite closely at reasons for the Internet not getting adopted.  Similar to the first half information in this section is further analyzed and displayed based on social and economical boundaries.  The report concludes with a few statements on where the trends are going as well as making statements on how this is impacting various social and economical divides such as the rural-urban disparity.

Question 1 - What knowledge did you gain about your topic as a result of the books you looked at this week?

Answer 1 - Most of the books about the Internet do not focus on the aspects I was looking for.  I had to look at research reports that were printed as e-books rather than more traditional books.  A number of reports focused on individual increase in Internet use by smaller countries.  In looking at the books expansion of Internet was very similar from country to country.

Question 2 - What new search strategies were particularly helpful for you in locating books?  Be specific and refer to the notes you took on your search path.

Answer 2 - I did not have to uncover any new search strategies.  I did have to deploy one I have used 

multiple times.  I take results from one search engine and use them as search terms on other search engines.  This allowed me to find a digital version of this book instead of just a reference to the book.

Question 3 - What difficulties or frustrations did you experience when searching for books?

Answer 3 - Not being able to find books that covered a broad enough section of Internet users to draw stats from.  I was also able to find some content referenced but was not able to find the book itself. 

Question 4 - What are you hoping to find out as you continue researching your topic?

Answer 4 - I have basic stats on overall Internet connectivity.  I would like to find information on the growth of Internet services such as Facebook as well.

Researching Strategies for the topic - How has increased adoption of the Internet opened common users to cyberattacks

I selected a report from Verizon

Verizon. (2015).  2015 Data Breach Investigations Report retrieved from http://www.verizonenterprise.com/DBIR/2015/

  Verizon’s yearly Data Breach Investigations Report uses metrics from a variety of security companies to help others manage and prepare for cyber attacks.  The article is primarily written for the internal security teams at companies all over the world to allow them to understand the threat landscape and adequately prepare.  The report is also used by Security Companies as source of product features and the Media for coverage of this space.
    This report is one of a number of topics I could use to collect statistics on cyberattacks including sections on Victim Demographics and various attack types.  The statistics and trends shown in the report give a very good understanding of how the threat landscape has changed over the years
    While searching I used terms like Internet Data Breach.  With the number of news stories in the media covering this topic the search can generate quite a bit of background noise.  So I added .PDF which removed the various news stories.  I will need to repeat this, to locate additional reports on Internet adoption.  I will need these new stats to correlate with the Verizon stats to illustrate how increased Internet adoption has lead to increased cyberattacks.