Tuesday, February 21, 2012

INI Launches ExecMSIA Program to Advance Cyber Security Among Global Business Leaders

at 8th Annual CyLab Partners Conference, September 2011

INI Launches ExecMSIA Program to Advance Cyber Security Among Global Business Leaders

To support strategic leadership, Carnegie Mellon’s Information Networking Institute (INI) will offer an Executive Master of Science in Information Assurance (ExecMSIA) Program beginning in fall 2012. Flexible to fit easily with frenetic career schedules, the ExecMSIA offers a concentration in cyber forensics and incident response (CyFIR) or resilience management. The two concentrations will be led by instructors in the CERT Program of the Software Engineering Institute. An option also is available for non-degree students to pursue certificates in these two areas.

The new program is designed to help a broad swath of business leaders and novel tech experts to see cybersecurity as a top priority, and to learn how to use tools like forensics to track adversaries.

“This is an interdisciplinary program designed to meet the needs of today’s fast-paced global business environment combining online sessions with periodic, short sessions on the Carnegie Mellon campus,” said Dena Haritos Tsamitis, INI director and director of education, training and outreach for Carnegie Mellon CyLab, one of the largest university-based cybersecurity education and research centers in the U.S.

“Students pursue the program with a cohort of about 20 peers, who add enrichment to each other’s professional network and enhance learning by sharing their own knowledge that has come from experience,” said Tsamitis, who is part of a presentation Feb. 27-March 2 on the Cyber Security School Challenge at the RSA Information Security Conference in San Francisco.

Text of full press release.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Latest CyLab Tech Report Explores Location-Sharing Privacy Preferences in U.S.A. and China



Latest CyLab Tech Report Explores Location-Sharing Privacy Preferences in U.S.A. and China

In the latest CyLab Tech Report (CMU-CyLab-12-003), CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Lab (CUPS) researchers Jason Hong and Norman Sadeh, and five co-authors have released the findings of "a three-week comparative study collecting location traces and location-sharing preferences from two comparable groups in the U.S. and China."

Here is an excerpt from the paper's conclusion:

Our study is the first and only an initial exploration into the differences of location-sharing preferences between participants of two countries. Despite the limitations mentioned in the previous subsection, our findings suggest that there are significant differences between the two groups of participants regarding location-sharing preferences. These results have several design implications for future location-sharing applications (LSA). First, LSAs should consider providing different levels of privacy assurance to users with different cultural backgrounds. So far, location sharing is still a relatively unfamiliar service in China. Our findings suggest that in order for LSAs to be successful in China, these services will need to provide more privacy assurances to users.
Second, different cultures may have different control requirements for sharing their location data. For example, we observed that Chinese participants needed specific control over the time when their locations would be shared, while data from U.S. participants suggest that the type of place where they are might be enough. LSAs might consider providing different control mechanisms to cater to the diverse needs of users from different backgrounds or countries.
We also found that participants’ sharing preferences were dramatically different when given additional control over how detailed their location information would be when shared. In our study, participants from both cultural backgrounds used many different granularities to accommodate their needs, which by itself is a significant finding and validates the availability of such controls in apps like Google Latitude[39]. However, Chinese participants used granularity settings primarily to maximize the amount of information they would be comfortable sharing, whereas U.S. participants used this control primarily to minimize their location disclosure. This finding suggests that introducing a more complex control mechanism could increase users’ comfort levels, however, it might encourage or discourage users to share more information.


Download the full paper here.

CyLab Tech Reports provide insights gleaned from ongoing work along fourteen different research thrusts. These papers are archived and available for free from CyLab OnLine.