University of Aberdeen has made it official that it is going to lead an international project to help businesses combat cyber attacks. The £1 million project which will be carried out in a 3-year time frame has been projected to help companies examine ways of preventing hackers enticing people into downloading malware.
From past couple of months, large scale ransomware attacks were witnessed targeting many companies operating across the globe. The first one was in the disguise of WannaCry attack which affected over 250,000 computer systems operation across 150 countries. And the second one was NotPetya/ GoldenEye ransomware attack which targeted companies operating in Europe, especially in Ukraine.
Security experts from across the world feel that such large scale attacks pose an increasing threat to organizations and businesses. And prevention happens to be the key concern for UK government and research funding bodies from all over the world.
Therefore, Scientists from the Aberdeen University Department of Sciences are being encouraged to carry on research work to find ways to help stop hackers trapping innocent victims via phishing emails.
The researchers are planning to take the help of techniques such as “Persuasive Technology” to investigate and encourage people to change their online behavior.
Dr. Mathew Collinson, one of the head scientists said that the research is aimed to find ways to get users remember and use cyber security advice. Mr. Collinson added that Artificial Intelligence will be used to construct intelligent programs using dialogues to explain security policies while persuasion techniques will help users to comply.
The UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council have provided the University of Aberdeen a fund of 756,000 pounds to support the project of Supporting Security Policy with Effective Digital Intervention Project and the project’s overall cost is estimated to be around 1 million pounds in total.
