Research

Life During Wartime: Proactive Cybersecurity is a Humanitarian Imperative

In brief:

  • Humanitarian agencies responding to conflict face massive challenges in distributing aid. Cyberattacks add to that burden.
  • This short overview, tailored for non-technical leaders, demystifies the process and equips clouds security experts to proactively champion cloud security at non-profits, and non-governmental organizations.
Release Date: 02/07/2024
CSA NJ Blog
Practical Approaches and Guidance to Small Business Organization Cyber Risk and Threat Assessments

Cyber-attacks and breaches can occur in any organization type, and the areas of small businesses are not exempt from this nefarious activity. This research note and rapid review provide various cybersecurity tools, guidelines, and frameworks that a small business can consider when embarking on the action to assess its cybersecurity hygiene and defensive stance. The content was pulled together in response to the need for an easy-to-digest approach that a small business utilizes to gain valuable confidence to undertake a self-assessment or third-party review of an organization’s cybersecurity plans. Regarding cybersecurity concerns, doing nothing is not an option, and taking an initial step to review computing, information technology, and data systems practices will only be beneficial in attempting to sustain a business and organization.
Release Date: 07/24/2023
Article Link

For Fun – Aligning or Putting Music to the Varieties of Efforts, Tasks, Work Roles, and Functions in Cybersecurity
Music can bring about special and unique feelings, thoughts, creativity, and inspiration. In this short commentary, a fun and interesting effort to place various music genres, musicians and bands, and songs are attempted to align or map against the variety of cybersecurity functions and tasks. As we move into the Memorial Day weekend in the United States, there will undoubtedly be music playing at barbecues, outdoor concerts, and a variety of events that pay tribute to and honor those who died while serving in the military. For those in the specific field of cybersecurity, mapping controls or tasks are often aligned to the variety of frameworks available, including those provided by the Cloud Security Alliance. Well, this fun take will map music to Cybersecurity! One of the goals of this short blog post-write-up is to generate greater enthusiasm for students who may be interested in pursuing cybersecurity roles in the workforce to help defend against the myriad of cyber attacks constantly taking place. Given the number of employment openings that extend throughout the United States and globally, such an activity to integrate the role of music into the variety of functions of Cybersecurity can be entertaining but also, and very importantly, provide a mechanism for students to understand the various specialties.

Release Date: 05/27/2022
CSA NJ Blog Link



Cybersecurity Best Practices for the Manufacturing Industry

The manufacturing and industrial sectors have evolved with the introduction of technologies over the past many decades. Progress in improving processes, techniques, output, quality, and efficiencies have been gained with new technology as they emerge, and the end result can be positive and fortuitous for organizations. With the rapid movement towards a modern-day manufacturing environment, new and connected technologies that employ greater cyber connectedness continue to grow, but at the same time, can introduce cybersecurity risks. 

Provided to the reader will include three main content areas :   
1) A historical background of the evolutionary Industry 1.0 through Industry 4.0 progress
2) The United States and Internationally available frameworks that can be approached to secure the manufacturing sector
3) A top 10 list of practical elements that can rapidly be approached to secure manufacturing systems from cyber threats as well as a look to the future.

Download Publication

 Link to Recording - CSA Discussion - Cybersecurity Best Practices for the Manufacturing Industry

The CSA New Jersey Chapter discusses their latest research publication, Cybersecurity Best Practices for the Manufacturing Industry.



CSA New Jersey at Kean University Chapter Research

Over the last 2 years since its creation, the CSA New Jersey Chapter at Kean University has contributed to the Cloud Security Alliance with various research publications. In May of 2021, the CSA New Jersey Chapter published a research document titled, Cloud Solution Data Science COVID-19 Dashboard. This brief case study article outlines the steps taken to create a prototype data science dashboard for data points related to the global COVID-19 pandemic response. These data points include global infection cases, deaths, testing, and vaccine administration by country, state, and region. This document also outlines how the prototype was securely built using cloud solutions, which ultimately expedited the development of these valuable resources.

Release Date: 05/27/2021

Description: Data centers grow annually by about forty percent, and those for industries such as healthcare, energy, and transportation are growing even faster. However, making data openly available with the use of the cloud can create security threats and opportunities for threat actors. Despite these dangers, many people and organizations benefit from the availability of open data. It can be a useful tool for tackling a global issue, which we have seen with the eagerness for information on the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, as open data centers are an increasingly important method for disseminating critical information, the need for cybersecurity to secure these resources has become a public interest and an obligation.

Key Takeaways:
  • How using cloud-enabled and open data makes knowledge on large-scale issues accessible and understandable
  • How Power BI, an online software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering from Microsoft, was used to do transformation and data modeling and to create a relational dataset
  • The challenges involved with using Power BI
  • How cloud security provisions, such as anonymized data, were used in the dashboard
  • What the setup of the COVID-19 cloud-enabled web portal looks like

Download Publication

CSA Blog - Cloud Video Surveillance
These days, it is not unusual to walk too far before you see the endpoint of a video surveillance system. Reviewing video surveillance cybersecurity. 

Release Date: 03/10/2021
CSA NJ Blog Link


CSA Research Artifact Library Access

Over the last 11 years, we have developed an extensive library of over 400 artifacts that speak to many different topics in cloud security. Accessing and downloading research has just become easier through our Research Artifacts Publications Library. Below are a few must-read artifacts:

Engaging CSA Research

https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/research/

As chapter members you have the opportunity to influence, leverage and participate in all aspects of CSA's Research Lifecycle by engaging our Working Groups, Open Peer Reviews, Surveys. You also have access to over 200 previously recorded CloudBytes webinars, which are a great way to stay educated on the latest trends in cloud security and earn CPE credits. 

When in Doubt - Join a CSA Working Group! 

https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/research/working-groups/ 

Above is the link to our active working groups spanning many different domains of cloud security. Simply click the working group microsite and you'll have access to the working group description, charter, latest artifact releases and upcoming meetings. By joining a working group you'll have intimate access to the latest technical documents in development, invited to working group calls and opportunities to collaborate with SME's. To get started with joining a working group, you will need to create a profile on our community platform Circle. 

Circle - Your gateway to CSA resources, discussions and working groups! 

https://circle.cloudsecurityalliance.org/home

Once you've signed up a Circle profile, please make sure to join your Chapter community.  Below are a few steps to follow: 

  1. Click on'Sign In' at the top, and sign in using your preferred mode (Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, email).
  2. Once you're in, you can click on 'Communities', then 'All Communities'. 
  3. Look for the group of your choice on the list and click 'Join'. 

Top CSA Research Publications

Screen_Shot_2022-02-23_at_4_24_09_PM.png
9d24d2d7ac6640f8a83eedfb68cadab8.png
Screen_Shot_2022-02-23_at_4_05_20_PM.png