Dr. Selwyn Ellis, the Bosley Whitmore Endowed Professor and head of the Department of Computer Information Systems at Louisiana Tech University, engages in a profound conversation with hosts Craig Van Slyke and Thomas Stafford regarding the establishment and maintenance of cybersecurity research and education programs that adhere to national standards. The dialogue reveals the multifaceted nature of achieving designation as a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense by the National Securit...
Jul 08, 2025•37 min•Ep. 25
Most organizations use sanctions as a way of enforcing cybersecurity policies and encouraging sound security behaviors. But few organizations ever test whether these sanctions are effective. Often they aren't; in fact, when used improperly sanctions can backfire. In this episode of Cyber Ways, Tom and Craig talk about sanctions and their effectiveness with Dr. Mikko Siponen of the University of Alabama's Culverhouse College of Business. Dr. Siponen is among the world's leading scholars when it c...
Sep 26, 2024•34 min•Ep. 24
In this thought-provoking episode of Cyber Ways, Tom and Craig discuss the intriguing topic of cybersecurity and religion with guests Dr. Karen Renaud and Dr. Marc Dupuis. Karen and Marc share insights from their research exploring the intersection of cybersecurity and world religions, offering a fresh perspective on enhancing cybersecurity practices. Key Points Covered: - The innovative research by Karen and Marc on leveraging positive values from world religions to influence cybersecurity beha...
May 28, 2024•37 min•Ep. 23
Discover the forces shaping your financial data's safety as we sit down with the eminent Jake Lee Jaeung, the Clifford Ray King Endowed Professor of Information Systems. In a landscape where cybercriminals lurk at every digital corner, we dissect how a blend of routine activity theory and practical cybersecurity can alter the terrain to our advantage. Together, we plunge into Jake's rigorous study with 461 financial institution employees and unravel the factors that skew risk perception and the ...
Jan 28, 2024•35 min•Ep. 22
Are you ready to shift your perspective on cybersecurity? We've got Dr. Karen Renaud, the general chair of Dewald Roode Workshop (DRW) this year and a renowned figure in information security research, to guide us on this fascinating journey. We'll be dissecting the paradigm-shifting presentations, lively debates and thought-provoking discussions from the workshop, with a special focus on Basie von Solms' revolutionary thoughts on the future of cybersecurity. Looking to understand why people ofte...
Sep 19, 2023•46 min•Ep. 21
Ever thought about the digital footprints you leave while surfing the web? What about those convenient log-ins via multiple accounts - ever wondered about the risks involved? This week, we're thrilled to talk with Professors France Belanger and Donna Wertalik of Virginia Tech University's Pamplin College of Business to help us unravel these intriguing questions. They're here to discuss their groundbreaking initiative, Voices of Privacy ( https://www.voicesofprivacy.com/ ), aimed at raising aware...
Jul 31, 2023•47 min•Season 1Ep. 20
ChatGPT burst into public awareness only a few months ago. The popularity of ChatGPT and similar generative AI tools offer great promise, but also represent significant threats to cybersecurity. In this episode of Cyber Ways, Tom and Craig have a fascinating discussion with Dr. Karen Renaud of the University of Strathclyde and Dr. Merrill Warkentin of Mississippi State University about their recent article in MIT Sloan Management Review, which they co-authored with George Westerman of MIT's Sloa...
May 15, 2023•33 min•Season 1Ep. 19
Phishing attempts remain an important attack vector, despite efforts to mitigate their effectiveness. In this episode of Cyber Ways, Tom and Craig talk with Dr. Deanna House of the University of Nebraska - Omaha about her paper that examines the relationship between fear messaging and the success of phishing attempts. Dr. House gives some actionable advice to security professionals who want to help their users avoid falling victim to phishing attempts. Intro audio for the Cyber Ways Podcast Outr...
Apr 18, 2023•34 min•Season 1Ep. 18
Security professionals often treat users as a major problem with securing information assets. But what if we could view humans as the SOLUTIONS? Users aren't the enemy of security professionals and they shouldn't be treated as such. Our guest, Dr. Karen Renaud of Strathclyde University in Glasgow, Scotland, joins us to talk about the importance of treating users as allies, not the enemy, building a culture of security that focuses on successes, encourages learning, and builds resilience. Many of...
Mar 22, 2023•43 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Security is everyone's job. This is a common feeling among cyber security professionals, but users may feel differently. In this episode of Cyber Ways, Tom and Craig talk about why this may be so, and what security professionals can do about it. Citation: Van Slyke, C., & Belanger, F. (2020). Explaining the interactions of humans and artifacts in insider security behaviors: The mangle of practice perspective. Computers & Security , 99 , 102064. For a copy of the paper, email vanslyke@lat...
Feb 09, 2023•40 min•Season 1Ep. 16
Sometimes, as cybersecurity professionals, it's easy to forget what an attack is like for a user. In this episode, Tom interviews his Mother about a recent attack. Mom tells an interesting cautionary tale of falling for a convincing phishing attack. Tom and I offer thoughts on how security professionals can help users avoid such exploits. 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 m...
Oct 05, 2022•21 min•Season 1Ep. 15
In this episode of Cyber Ways, Dr. Jeffrey Proudfoot of Bentley University joins Tom and Craig to discuss his research on how cybersecurity regulations affect cybersecurity maturity. Dr. Proudfoot is collaborating with Dr. Stuart Madnick of MIT's Sloan School of Business on this program of research. Dr. Proudfoot is an associate professor on information and process management in Bentley’s business school and is also a research affiliate at MIT’s "Cybersecurity at MIT Sloan" research group. He ho...
Aug 18, 2022•54 min•Season 1Ep. 14
Human trafficking is a huge, growing global problem. Sex trafficking is the most pervasive form of human trafficking. In this episode, we discuss how the Deliver Fund uses information technology to help law enforcement track the traffickers through their P.A.T.H. system. Drs. Giddens and Petter also discuss their research into factors that affect law enforcement officers' use of P.A.T.H. Dr. Laurie Giddens is an assistant professor in the department of Technology and Decision Sciences at North T...
Jul 14, 2022•43 min
Protecting organizational information systems and information assets is a complex undertaking for both security professionals and end-users. In this episode of Cyber Ways, we discuss behavioral complexity as it relates to end-users' security behaviors with Dr. Clay Posey of Brigham Young University and Dr. Tom Roberts of the University of Texas at Tyler. We talk with Drs. Posey and Roberts about their 2017 paper, Insiders' Adaptations to Security-Based Demands in the Workplace: An Examination of...
Jun 16, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Organizational insiders represent the biggest threat to information security. Because of this, controlling insider computer abuse remains an important cyber security priority. In this episode of Cyber Ways, Dr, A.J Burns of Louisiana State University, and Dr. Bryan Fuller of Louisiana Tech University discuss their research into the tensions between insider's motivations to commit computer abuse, and organization's attempts to control such behavior. Intro audio for the Cyber Ways Podcast Outro au...
May 05, 2022•45 min•Season 1Ep. 11
The COVID-19 pandemic forced many people, and organizations, into telework, which led to the question of how to properly monitor teleworkers. In this episode of Cyber Ways, we talk with Grant Clary about his research into teleworker surveillance and how different modes of surveillance affect teleworker well-being. 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 Busine...
Mar 24, 2022•29 min•Season 1Ep. 10
When it comes to security controls and communications, more may be less. More complex security requirements, increased security communication, and complex security policies may actually lead to less secure end-user behaviors. Why? Security fatigue -- users simply feel worn out by having to deal with information security. In this episode of Cyber Ways, Dr. John D’Arcy of the University of Delaware joins us to discuss his research (conducted with Alec Cram of the University of Waterloo, and Jeffre...
Feb 17, 2022•37 min
In this episode of Cyber Ways, Tom and Craig discuss a classic behavioral security paper that explores how users rationalize their purposeful violations of security policy. Listen and learn the six common rationalizations and what security managers can do to reduce their effects. Citation: Siponen, M., & Vance, A. (2010). Neutralization: new insights into the problem of employee information systems security policy violations, MIS Quarterly , 34(3), 487-502. Intro audio for the Cyber Ways Pod...
Jan 20, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Every day we are bombarded with security warnings that all look more-or-less the same. Over time, we tend to tune out these warnings through a process called habituation. In this episode of Cyber Ways, we discuss this problem and how to address it with Dr. Anthony (Tony) Vance of Virginia Tech. Dr. Vance and his colleagues have conducted fascinating research using sophisticated technologies including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and eye tracking to gain an understanding of the ex...
Jan 05, 2022•32 min
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,...
Nov 30, 2021•28 min
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 gro...
Nov 11, 2021•29 min
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 u...
Oct 28, 2021•39 min•Season 1Ep. 4
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 vanslyke@latech.edu 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, ...
Oct 14, 2021•32 min
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 additio...
Sep 30, 2021•32 min
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 ...
Sep 15, 2021•34 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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 ...
Sep 06, 2021•6 min
