Emerging Cyber Threats and Cognitive Vulnerabilities

Vladlena Benson is Professor of Information Systems at the Aston Business School. She is a specialist in technology governance, risk and compliance (GRC) and a Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)-certified Cyber Security Risk Management Frameworks practitioner. She is currently working with UK businesses on privacy and cyber security initiatives, such as the forthcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and privacy compliance. Prof Benson’s research areas cover: information privacy; cyber victimisation; gender and culture differences in online behaviour; digital rights and the cyber vulnerability of young people. Her work also relates to religious orientation, digital behaviour and privacy on social media. She is a strong advocate for increasing diversity in the cyber security work force, and actively endeavours to bring more female talent into the digital economy. As part of her research, she currently runs a number of projects to help target the digital skills crisis – developing tools for opening up cyberspace entrepreneurship opportunities from an early age. As a result of her work in this area, Prof Benson was recognised at the Women in IT Awards 2017 for helping the development of career opportunities for women in cyber security.

John McAlaney is a Chartered Psychologist, Chartered Scientist and Associate Professor of Psychology at Bournemouth University. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Stirling, his MSc at the University of Strathclyde and then his PhD at the University of West of Scotland in 2007. Dr. McAlaney's PhD was on the topic of social psychology and substance use, looking particularly at misperceptions of peer norms. Following this he worked on an AERC funded post-doc position at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine before moving onto a lecturing post at the University of Bradford in 2008. He joined the Department of Psychology at Bournemouth University in 2014. Since joining Bournemouth he has collaborated extensively with colleagues in the Department of Computing and Informatics to explore psychological factors of cyber security, including participation in hacking and hacktivism, group dynamics in cyber security actors and decision making processes in relation to phishing emails and other mediums. As part of this work he collaborates extensively with government, military and commercial organisations. In 2018 he led the authorship of the British Psychological Society’s briefing paper on the role of psychology in informing cybersecurity practices.