Cyber Ways Podcast

We humans, like all animals, are wired to respond to fear.  When a wildebeest senses a lion's presence, they go on alert and flee. Humans react similarly -- fear brings reaction. In this episode of Cyber Ways, we talk with Dr. Dennis Galletta from the Katz School of Business at the University of Pittsburg about his research into how to leverage users' fear to bring about protective behaviors, such as using antimalware software or backing up data. 

Boss, S. R., Galletta, D. F., Lowry, P. B., Moody, G. D., & Polak, P. (2015). What do systems users have to fear? Using fear appeals to engender threats and fear that motivate protective security behaviors. MIS Quarterly, 39(4), 837-864.

Intro audio for the Cyber Ways Podcast

Outro audio for Cyber Ways Podcast

Cyber Ways is brought to you by the Center for Information Assurance, which is housed in the College of Business at Louisiana Tech University. The podcast is made possible through a "Just Business Grant," which is funded by the University's generous donors.

https://business.latech.edu/cyberways/

Many studies of cyber security behavior treat behaviors as the result of conscious thought. But, most behaviors are automatic and occur without any conscious deliberation of the benefits and risks of the behavior. Psychologists call this automatic thinking System 1 cognition as opposed to the more deliberative System 2 cognition. Unfortunately, System 1 thinking has rarely been studied in the context of security behaviors. In this episode of Cyber Ways, we talk with Dr. Alan Dennis about his groundbreaking research on the role of automatic thinking in cyber security. 

Dr. Dennis is Professor of Information Systems and John T. Chambers Chair of Internet Systems at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. Dr. Dennis has written over 150 journal articles, with many of those published in top journals. He is Past President of the Association for Information Systems and also served as Vice President for Conferences. His many contributions to the field of information systems were recognized in 2012 when he was named a Fellow of the Association for Information Systems. In addition to his research and teaching, Dr. Dennis has been involved in several technology startups, including his current venture, Wisdom Springboard, which develops educational video games to help students learn analytics and cybersecurity.

Dennis, A. R., & Minas, R. K. (2018). Security on autopilot: Why current security theories hijack our thinking and lead us astray. ACM SIGMIS Database: The DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems, 49(SI), 15-38.

Email [email protected] for a copy of the paper.

Intro audio for the Cyber Ways Podcast

Outro audio for Cyber Ways Podcast

Cyber Ways is brought to you by the Center for Information Assurance, which is housed in the College of Business at Louisiana Tech University. The podcast is made possible through a "Just Business Grant," which is funded by the University's generous donors.

https://business.latech.edu/cyberways/

In this episode of Cyber Ways, Dr. Clay Posey of Brigham Young University, and Dr. Matthew Canham from the University of Central Florida join us to discuss their 2021 paper, “Phishing for Long Tails: Examining Organizational Repeat Clickers and Protective Stewards,” which was published in SAGE Open. The paper discusses an extensive research project that investigated user responses to phishing attempts. Their results indicate that the majority of phishing attempts clicks come from a minority of users. Also, some users not only never click on phishing attempts, but also tend to report the attempts. Clay and Matt discuss ways that security professionals can think differently about their users and security education, training, and awareness programs to make their organizations’ systems more secure. You can access their paper here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244021990656

Dr. Posey is an associate professor of information systems at Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Business. Prior to joining BYU, Dr. Posey was on the faculty of the University of Central Florida. He also served as a faculty member at the University of Alabama, where he was Associate Director of the Cyber Institute. He has published extensively in top journals, including MIS Quarterly, Journal of Management Information Systems, and Decision Sciences among many others. His research focuses primarily on behavioral aspects of information security and privacy. He is active in numerous professional organizations, including the IFIP Working Group 8.11/11.13 on Information Systems Security Research. We are proud to say that Dr. Posey is a graduate of Louisiana Tech’s doctoral program.

Dr. Canham is currently a research professor of cybersecurity at the University of Central Florida’s Institute of Simulation and Training. His primary research focus is on defending against synthetic media or deepfake remote online social media attacks, human-AI hybrid defense teams, and preventing inference attacks. Prior to joining UCG. Dr. Canham was the program manager of the Emerging Technologies Program for the Operational Technology Division of the Department of Justice at Quantico, VA. He holds a doctorate in cognition, perception, and cognitive neuroscience from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Dr. Posey and Dr. Canham are founders of Beyond Layer 7, a consultancy that helps organizations better secure the human layer in organizational cybersecurity. See https://www.belay7.com/index.html for more details.

Intro audio for the Cyber Ways Podcast

Outro audio for Cyber Ways Podcast

Cyber Ways is brought to you by the Center for Information Assurance, which is housed in the College of Business at Louisiana Tech University. The podcast is made possible through a "Just Business Grant," which is funded by the University's generous donors.

https://business.latech.edu/cyberways/

The Cyber Ways podcast is brought to you by the Center for Information Assurance, at Louisiana Tech University’s College of Business. Cyber Ways is funded through a Just Business grant, made possible through the generosity of donors to the Louisiana Tech University College of Business. For more information contact Craig Van Slyke at [email protected]

Intro audio for the Cyber Ways Podcast

Outro audio for Cyber Ways Podcast

Cyber Ways is brought to you by the Center for Information Assurance, which is housed in the College of Business at Louisiana Tech University. The podcast is made possible through a "Just Business Grant," which is funded by the University's generous donors.

https://business.latech.edu/cyberways/

In this episode of Cyber Ways, Craig interviews co-host Dr. Tom Stafford about his 2021 paper, Platform-Dependent Computer Security Complacency: The Unrecognized Insider Threat, which was published in the IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.

Dr. Stafford is the J.E. Barnes Eminent Scholar in Data Analytics at Louisiana Tech University. He holds doctorates in Marketing from the University of Georgia, and Management Information Systems from the University of Texas at Arlington. In addition to publishing dozens of articles in high-quality journals, he has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Decision Sciences Journal, and is currently co-Editor-in-Chief of The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems,  which is the oldest continuously-published journal in information systems. Dr. Stafford also co-chaired the 2018 Americas Conference on Information Systems, and the 2019 IFIP 8.11/11.13 Information Security Workshop. He is also co-chairing the 2025 International Conference in Information Systems. 

Tom’s paper discusses how many problematic security behaviors are the result of complacency or ignorance, rather than explicit malicious behavior. He also describes the concept of cyber-complacency, which he defines as an unconcerned dependence on technological security protections.

Abstract (direct copy from the paper)

This article reports on a grounded theory investigation of subject response anomalies that were encountered in the course of a neurocognitive laboratory study of computer user cybersecurity behaviors. Subsequent qualitative data collection led to theoretical development in specification of three broad constructs of computer user security complacency. Theoretical insights indicate that states of security complacency can arise in the form of a naïve lack of concern about the likelihood of facing security threats (inherent complacency), from ill-advised dependence upon specific computing platforms and protective workplace technology implementations for protection (platform complacency), as well as the reliance on the guidance on advice from trusted social others in personal and workplace networks (social complacency). Elements of an emergent theory of cybersecurity complacency arising from our interpretive insights are discussed.

Link to the paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9373614

The Cyber Ways podcast is brought to you by the Center for Information Assurance, at Louisiana Tech University’s College of Business. Cyber Ways is funded through a Just Business grant, made possible through the generosity of donors to the Louisiana Tech University College of Business.

Intro audio for the Cyber Ways Podcast

Outro audio for Cyber Ways Podcast

Cyber Ways is brought to you by the Center for Information Assurance, which is housed in the College of Business at Louisiana Tech University. The podcast is made possible through a "Just Business Grant," which is funded by the University's generous donors.

https://business.latech.edu/cyberways/

Whether we know it or not, our behaviors, including those related to cybersecurity, are influenced by others. Sometimes this is obvious, such as when we read reviews before reserving a hotel room, but often the effects are more subtle. In this episode of Cyber Ways, Dr. Merrill Warkentin of Mississippi State University joins us to discuss his 2020 paper, "Can Secure Behaviors be Contagious? A Two-Stage Investigation of the Influence of Herd Behavior on Security Decisions, which was published in the Journal of the Association for Information Systems. Dr. Warkentin co-authored the paper with Dr. Ali Vedadi of Middle Tennessee State University.

Vedadi, A., & Warkentin, M. (2020). Can secure behaviors be contagious? A two-stage investigation of the influence of herd behavior on security decisions. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 21(2), 428-459. doi: 10.17705/1jais.00607.

Intro audio for the Cyber Ways Podcast

Outro audio for Cyber Ways Podcast

Cyber Ways is brought to you by the Center for Information Assurance, which is housed in the College of Business at Louisiana Tech University. The podcast is made possible through a "Just Business Grant," which is funded by the University's generous donors.

https://business.latech.edu/cyberways/

The Cyber Ways Podcast brings academic cyber security research into the "real world." We interview top academic researchers to find how their research can be put into practice by cyber security professionals. Our focus is on behavioral aspects of cyber security. Occasionally, we touch on related topics, such as information privacy and surveillance.

Each episode discusses one published, peer-reviewed article to reveal the practical implications of the research. Your hosts, Tom Stafford and Craig Van Slyke,  are both widely published information systems academics who keep one foot in the world of practice.

The Cyber Ways Podcast is brought to you by the Center for  Information Assurance at the Louisiana Tech University's College of Business. The Cyber Ways podcast is funded through a Just Business grant, made possible through the generosity of donors to the Louisiana Tech University College of Business.

Cyber Ways is brought to you by the Center for Information Assurance, which is housed in the College of Business at Louisiana Tech University. The podcast is made possible through a "Just Business Grant," which is funded by the University's generous donors.

https://business.latech.edu/cyberways/