Deep Reinforcement Learning for Cybersecurity Applications

There has been a rapid growth of the devices connected to the internet in the last decade for the various internet (IoT) of things applications. The increase of these smart devices has posed a great security concern in the internet of things ecosystem. The internet of things ecosystem must be protected from these threats. Reinforcement learning has been proposed by the cybersecurity professionals to provide the needed security tools for securing the IoT system since it is able to interact with the environment and learn how to detect the threats. This paper presents a comprehensive research on cybersecurity threats to the IoT system applications. The RL algorithms are also presented to understand the attacks on the IoT. Reinforcement learning is widely employed in cybersecurity because it can learn on its own experience by investigating and capitalizing on the unknown ecosystem, this enables it solve many complex problems. The RL capabilities on dealing with cybercrime challenges are also exploited in this paper.

Quad: Origin and Evolving Dynamics

Quad is not a formal treaty, and for its members, it is not the only platform in Asia. It has brought like-minded maritime democracies together to create a Free and Open Indo-Pacific. It has responded to disaster crises and the pandemic more promptly than China’s aggressive moves in the Indo-Pacific region. This article aims to understand the origin of ‘the Quad’ referred to as Quad 1.0 and its failure in 2007 and re-emergence of it as Quad 2.0. Quad 2.0 is further divided into the pre-pandemic Quad 2.1 and pandemic onset Quad 2.2. This article articulates the trajectory that Quad has traversed to reach Summit level meetings and its pursued agenda. The latest development in this arena is forming a trilateral agreement between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom (AUKUS). This article questions the role of Quad in view of the formation of AUKUS and draw on its implications. It concludes that Quad has faltered in answering the security concern, paving the way for AUKUS. Quad’s role is likely to turn towards a developmental paradigm of ‘productive global public good’. In the long run, this will help create an equitable cohesive region and realize the ambition of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific.

Opportunities of Using Space Technology to Enhance Border Security in South Africa

The failure of the South African border security authorities to provide effective border security continues to be a national security concern. The inability to provide effective border security is due to factors such as ineffective methods of controlling and monitoring the borders. The aim of this study was to examine the practicability of employing space technology to address identified border security constraints. The study focused on border security authorities and the space technology sector in South Africa. To achieve this objective, a qualitative research methodology was used to ascertain the issues and constraints of border security in South Africa as well as the possibilities of utilising space technology to address border security constraints in South Africa. Findings indicate that there is a need to utilise space technology in South Africa to enhance the level of border security.

Cultivating the Art of Anxiety: Securitising Culture in China

Deepening globalisation and worldwide availability of free information and ideas raise concerns of the communist China’s political leadership about the stability of the regime and the sustainability of the state ideological orthodoxy. Therefore, the state’s tightening control of the public communication to curtail the domestic criticism and occasional public discontent is becoming framed and legitimised in terms of cultural security as a non-traditional security concern. This study argues that the restrictive impacts of the politicisation of culture in the centralised agenda of President Xi Jinping reinvigorate China’s anti-Western narratives and attitudes. The research focuses on the state’s cultural security-related and applicable strategy in the political and institutional agenda and media. Moreover, the study also traces the state cultural security policy in the field of the civic and non-governmental sector, religious and ethnic minorities policy, literature, film and audiovisual sectors. The findings assess the concern that the intellectually anachronistic, self-restraining and internationally hostile policy devaluates China’s cultural potential and complexity.

Challenges and Their Practices in Adoption of Hybrid Cloud Computing: An Analytical Hierarchy Approach

Cloud computing adoption provides various advantages for companies. In particular, hybrid cloud shares the advantages of both the public and private cloud technologies because it combines the private in-house cloud with the public on-demand cloud. In order to obtain benefits from the opportunities provided by the hybrid cloud, organizations want to adopt or develop novel capabilities. Maturity models have proved to be an exceptional and easily available method for evaluating and improving capabilities. However, there is a dire need for a robust framework that helps client organizations in the adoption and assessment of hybrid cloud. Therefore, this research paper aims to present a taxonomy of the challenging factors faced by client organizations in the adoption of hybrid cloud. Typically, such a taxonomy is presented on the basis of obtained results from the empirical analysis with the execution of analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method. From the review of literature and empirical study, in total 13 challenging factors are recognized and plotted into four groups: “Lack of Inclination,” “Lack of Readiness,” “Lack of Adoption,” and “Lack of Satisfaction.” The AHP technique is executed to prioritize the identified factors and their groups. By this way, we found that “Lack of Adoption” and “Lack of Satisfaction” are the most significant groups from the identified challenging factors. Findings from AHP also show that “public cloud security concern” and “achieving QoS” are the upper ranking factors confronted in the adoption of hybrid cloud mechanism by client organizations because their global weight (0.201) is greater than those of all the other reported challenging factors. We also found out 46 practices to address the identified challenges. The taxonomy developed in this study offers a comprehensive structure for dealing with hybrid cloud computing issues, which is essential for the success and advancement of client and vendor organizations in hybrid cloud computing relationships.

Factors Affecting Awareness of Phishing Among Generation Y

The purpose of this study was to determine the factors affecting awareness of phishing among Generation Y in Malaysia. Specifically, this study identified three factors that may influence awareness of phishing by applying the Theory of Technology Threat Avoidance. The factors are social engineering, anti-phishing knowledge, and security concern. Data was collected through a questionnaire survey. This study found that all the factors significantly influenced awareness of phishing among Generation Y in Malaysia. The findings of this study provide a further understanding of the factors that affect awareness of phishing. This study would benefit the public, especially Generation Y, the government, and all types of businesses, including financial institutions, by raising awareness of phishing and reducing phishing attacks. Keywords: phishing, Generation Y, social engineering, anti-phishing knowledge, security concern

Promoting Information-Resource Sharing within the Enterprise: A Perspective of Blockchain Consensus Perception

The prevalence of information technology (IT) and information systems (IS) provides opportunities for enterprises to sustain open innovation. However, information silos that appeared with IS use have made IS inconvenient and thus impeded enterprises’ open innovation. The present study, therefore, aims to resolve this issue by helping understand how to encourage information-resource sharing within the enterprise. We first proposed a new concept—consensus perception—based on the blockchain characteristics and advantages derived from prior studies, and then developed a conceptual model based on the consensus perception and principal–agent theory. Second, we used this conceptual model to investigate whether blockchain technology (BT) can be used to promote information-resource sharing. The results showed that information security concern, perceived rewards, and openness have direct influences on information-resource sharing intention and that trust has indirect effects. The findings provide useful theoretical and practical contributions to sustain enterprises’ open innovation by adopting BT to solve the information-resource sharing issues.

An Enhanced Data Storage Technique on Cloud Computing

Exercising a collection of similar numerous easy to get sources and resources over the internet is termed as Cloud Computing A Cloud storage system is basically a storage system over a large scale that consist of many independent storage servers. During recent years a huge changes and adoption is seen in cloud computing so security has become one of the major concerns in it. As Cloud computing works on third party system so security concern is there not only for customers but also for service providers. In this paper we have discussed about Cryptography i.e., encrypting messages into certain forms, it’s algorithms including symmetric and asymmetric algorithm and hashing, its architecture, and advantages of cryptography.