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Exploring Corporate Decision Makers' Attitudes Towards Active Cyber Protecting the Information Society: Exploring Corporate Decision Makers’ Attitudes towards Active Cyber Defence as an Online Deterrence Option by Patrick Neal A Dissertation Submitted to the College of Interdisciplinary Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Royal Roads University Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Supervisor: Dr. Bernard Schissel February, 2019 Patrick Neal, 2019 COMMITTEE APPROVAL The members of Patrick Neal’s Dissertation Committee certify that they have read the dissertation titled Protecting the Information Society: Exploring Corporate Decision Makers’ Attitudes towards Active Cyber Defence as an Online Deterrence Option and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Social Sciences: Dr. Bernard Schissel [signature on file] Dr. Joe Ilsever [signature on file] Ms. Bessie Pang [signature on file] Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copy of the dissertation to Royal Roads University. The dissertation supervisor confirms to have read this dissertation and recommends that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirements: Dr. Bernard Schissel[signature on file] Creative Commons Statement This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 2.5 Canada License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ca/ . Some material in this work is not being made available under the terms of this licence: • Third-Party material that is being used under fair dealing or with permission. • Any photographs where individuals are easily identifiable. Contents Creative Commons Statement............................................................................................. 3 Contents .............................................................................................................................. 4 List of Tables ....................................................................................................................... 7 List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... 9 Abstract ............................................................................................................................. 10 What is this Information Society and Why We Need to Protect It? .................................. 18 Outline of Current Doctoral Research .......................................................................... 23 The 5 W’s (Who What, When, Where, Why) of Protecting the Information Society. ..... 26 Information Security and Cyber Threat Actors ............................................................. 26 Software Suites and Cyber Attack / Defend Techniques .............................................. 27 Typology of Cyberattacks ............................................................................................. 31 Botnets and Distributed Denial of Service Attack: A Case Study in Harm ............. 32 Other Cyberattacks Using Weaponized Software ..................................................... 41 Active Cyber Defence as Deterrence ............................................................................ 46 Active Cyber Defence: Emerging Discourse and Definitions .................................. 51 Active Cyber Defence Legal Framework ..................................................................... 59 Philosophy of Information ............................................................................................ 62 Corporations versus Individuals as Moral Agents in the Information Society ............. 65 Summing up the 5 W’s of Protecting the Information Society. .................................... 70 The Research Questions .................................................................................................... 73 Literature Review of Select Theories ............................................................................... 76 Social Contract Theory ................................................................................................. 79 Sense of Justice Theory and Deterrence ....................................................................... 83 Social Contract’s Justice Framework............................................................................ 84 The Current State of Cyberdeterrence: Revenge and Securitization. ........................... 90 Active Cyber Defence versus Revenge / Vengeance / Vigilante Justice ................... 90 Securitization as Conceptual Model to Create / Guide ACD Policy. ............................ 96 What is Being Securitized? ....................................................................................... 96 Defining Securitization Speech Act .......................................................................... 97 Defining the Units of Analysis in the Speech Act ..................................................... 99 Securitization of Cybersecurity and the Positive Social Contract ...............................114 Setting the Positive Securitization Framework for ACD .........................................115 Cognitive Aspects of Corporate Decision Makers ...................................................... 125 Corporate Decision Makers Responsible for Active Cyber Defence...................... 130 Methods Section.............................................................................................................. 132 Methodology ............................................................................................................... 132 Challenges ............................................................................................................... 132 Survey Design as a Method ........................................................................................ 135 Survey Instrument Design....................................................................................... 136 Survey Sample Size ................................................................................................ 137 Survey Instrument ................................................................................................... 138 Survey Instrument Factors ...................................................................................... 140 Results Section ............................................................................................................ 141 Key Findings – Descriptive .................................................................................... 141 Key Findings – Statistical Analysis (Factor Analysis & PCA Model).................... 145 Key Results – Themes Analysis .............................................................................. 147 Discussion – Introduction ........................................................................................... 148 Discussion - Statistical Results ................................................................................... 149 Component 1 - Insure Corporate ACD ................................................................... 149 Component 2 – ACD is Legislated as a Corporate Social Responsibility. ............. 150 Component 3 Government Must Punish Cyberattackers ........................................ 152 Component 4: Do More to Protect Information Society ......................................... 154 Component 5: Information Mediates Survival (Safety/Security) ........................... 155 Discussion – Descriptive Findings.......................................................................... 156 Open Ended Questions Analysis ................................................................................. 160 Methods Conclusion ................................................................................................... 166 Answering the Research Questions – Bringing it All Together ...................................... 168 Active Cyber Defence as a Public Policy – Theory of Change ...................................... 178 Active Cyber Defence as Public Policy .......................................................................... 182 Large Leaps / Punctuated Equilibrium & ACD .......................................................... 185 Messaging and Frameworks Theory of Change ......................................................... 189 Future Research .............................................................................................................. 192 Technology Adoption Model (TAM) .......................................................................... 192 Developing Critical Realist Ethical Framework: Do Something. ............................... 194 Dedicated ACD Research and Development Think Tank. .......................................... 196 Advanced Statistical Modeling to Explore ACD Decision Making ........................... 197 Botnets, Zombies and ACD ........................................................................................ 198 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 199 References ...................................................................................................................... 202 Appendix A: Research Questions and Survey Themes ................................................... 234 Appendix B: Theory of Change Models ........................................................................
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