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Considering the performance limiters for cybersecurity controls

Supervisors

Suitable for

MSc in Advanced Computer Science
Computer Science, Part B
Mathematics and Computer Science, Part C
Computer Science and Philosophy, Part C
Computer Science, Part C

Abstract

The behaviour, and so effectiveness, of security controls is dependent upon how they are used. One obvious example being the protection afforded by a firewall is dependent upon the maintenance of the rules that determine what the firewall stops and what it does not. The benefit (to the organisation or user seeking to manage risk) of various technical controls in an operational context lacks good evidence and data, so there is scope to consider the performance of controls in a lab environment. This mini-project would select one or more controls from the CIS Top 20 Critical Security Controls (CSC) (version 6.1) and seek to develop laboratory experiments (and implement them) to gather data on how the effectiveness of the control is impacted by its deployment context (including, for example, configuration, dependence on other controls, nature of the threat faced).

Requirements: Students will need an ability to develop a test-suite and deploy the selected controls.