Cybersecurity for SMEs: Introducing the Human Element into Socio-technical Cybersecurity Risk Assessment

Costas Boletsis, Ragnhild Halvorsrud, J. Brian Pickering, Stephen Phillips, Mike Surridge

2021

Abstract

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) rarely conduct a thorough cyber-risk assessment and they may face various internal issues when attempting to set up cyber-risk strategies. In this work, we apply a user journey approach to model human behaviour and visually map SMEs’ practices and threats, along with a visualisation of the socio-technical actor network, targeted specifically at the risks highlighted in the user journey. By using a combination of cybersecurity-related visualisations, our goals are: i) to raise awareness about cybersecurity, and ii) to improve communication among IT personnel, security experts, and non-technical personnel. To achieve these goals, we combine two modelling languages: Customer Journey Modelling Language (CJML) is a visual language for modelling and visualisation of work processes in terms of user journeys. System Security Modeller (SSM) is an asset-based risk-analysis tool for socio-technical systems. By demonstrating the languages’ supplementary nature through a threat scenario and considering related theories, we believe that there is a sound basis to warrant further validation of CJML and SSM together to raise awareness and handle cyber threats in SMEs.

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Paper Citation


in Harvard Style

Boletsis C., Halvorsrud R., Pickering J., Phillips S. and Surridge M. (2021). Cybersecurity for SMEs: Introducing the Human Element into Socio-technical Cybersecurity Risk Assessment. In Proceedings of the 16th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (VISIGRAPP 2021) - Volume 3: IVAPP; ISBN 978-989-758-488-6, SciTePress, pages 266-274. DOI: 10.5220/0010332902660274


in Bibtex Style

@conference{ivapp21,
author={Costas Boletsis and Ragnhild Halvorsrud and J. Brian Pickering and Stephen Phillips and Mike Surridge},
title={Cybersecurity for SMEs: Introducing the Human Element into Socio-technical Cybersecurity Risk Assessment},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 16th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (VISIGRAPP 2021) - Volume 3: IVAPP},
year={2021},
pages={266-274},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0010332902660274},
isbn={978-989-758-488-6},
}


in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 16th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (VISIGRAPP 2021) - Volume 3: IVAPP
TI - Cybersecurity for SMEs: Introducing the Human Element into Socio-technical Cybersecurity Risk Assessment
SN - 978-989-758-488-6
AU - Boletsis C.
AU - Halvorsrud R.
AU - Pickering J.
AU - Phillips S.
AU - Surridge M.
PY - 2021
SP - 266
EP - 274
DO - 10.5220/0010332902660274
PB - SciTePress