Abstract-Digital forensics has been proposed as a methodology for doing root-cause analysis of major software failures for quite a while. Despite this, similar software failures still occur repeatedly. A reason for this is the difficulty of obtaining detailed evidence of software failures. Acquiring such evidence can be challenging, as the relevant data may be lost or corrupt following a software system's crash. This paper proposes the use of near-miss analysis to improve on the collection of evidence for software failures. Near-miss analysis is an incident investigation technique that detects and subsequently analyses indicators of failures. The results of a near-miss analysis investigation are then used to detect an upcoming failure before the failure unfolds. The detection of these indicators -known as near misses -therefore provides an opportunity to proactively collect relevant data that can be used as digital evidence, pertaining to software failures. A Near Miss Management System (NMS) architecture for the forensic investigation of software failures is proposed. The viability of the proposed architecture is demonstrated through a prototype.
The increasing demand for online and real-time interaction with IT infrastructures by end users is facilitated by the proliferation of user-centric devices such as laptops, iPods, iPads, and smartphones. This trend is furthermore propounded by the plethora of apps downloadable to end user devices mostly within mobile-cum-cloud environments. It is clear that there are many evidences of innovation with regard to end user devices and apps. Unfortunately, little, if any, information security innovation took place over the past number of years with regard to the consumption of security services by end users. This creates the need for innovative security solutions that are human-centric and flexible. This chapter presents a framework for consuming loosely coupled (but interoperable) cloud-based security services by a variety of end users in an efficient and flexible manner using their mobile devices.
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