Vulnerability disclosure and cybersecurity awareness campaigns on twitter during COVID‐19

Abstract

The COVID‐19 pandemic introduced the new norm that changed the way we work and live. During these unprecedented times, most of the organizations expected their employees to work from home. Remote working created new opportunities for hackers since more users were making use of digital platforms for online shopping, accessing Virtual Private Network (VPN), videoconferencing platforms, and software alike. Consequently, cybercrime increased due to the increase in the attack surface, and software vulnerabilities were exploited for launching cyberattacks. There is existing research that explores vulnerability disclosure on Twitter. However, there is a lack of study on opportunistic targeted attacks where specific vulnerabilities are exploited in a way that benefit adversaries the most in times such as COVID‐19. The primary aim of this work is to study the effectiveness of vulnerability disclosure pattern on Twitter in COVID‐19, and discuss how Twitter can be leveraged as Open‐Source Intelligence (OSINT) during a pandemic where the global users can follow a coordinated approach to share security‐related information and conduct awareness campaigns. The study identifies Twitter as an apt source for conducting cybersecurity awareness campaigns as 99.83% of the security vulnerabilities are found to be accurate. The information can help global cybersecurity agencies to proactively identify vulnerabilities, coordinate activities, and plan for mitigation strategies since releasing patches from the vendor might take time.

Study on early accurate diagnosis and treatment of COVID‐19 with smart phone tracking using bionics

“…Solar energy is more favorable than other sources of illumination including fire, electricity, gasoline, and petroleum. 2,3 These are harmful to humans and can even be fatal, but this type of light mimics the ability of fireflies to produce flickering light and create artificial light in the real world by synthesizing the chemicals luciferase and luciferin, which are used by fireflies to create light artificially in the real world, can save the lives of thousands of people because it is cold and harmless to living things. 4 This type of flickering light is advantageous during auspicious events and festivals when lightning is necessary, particularly on Hindu holidays like Diwali where many people die from fireworks.…”

“…One excellent illustration is a firefly, in which researchers investigate how the insects make light and mimic the process to create artificial lighting that flickers. Solar energy is more favorable than other sources of illumination including fire, electricity, gasoline, and petroleum 2,3 . These are harmful to humans and can even be fatal, but this type of light mimics the ability of fireflies to produce flickering light and create artificial light in the real world by synthesizing the chemicals luciferase and luciferin, which are used by fireflies to create light artificially in the real world, can save the lives of thousands of people because it is cold and harmless to living things 4 .…”

Public cybersecurity awareness good practices on government-led websites

“…Furthermore, various scholars attest that cybersecurity awareness by cyber users is the best assurance against cybercrime (Broeders, 2021;Corallo, Lazoi, Lezzi & Luperto, 2022;Nagyfejeo & von Solms, 2020). Some scholars, therefore, advocate for a coordinated and coherent national cybersecurity awareness program at a national level (Nagyfejeo & von Solms, 2020); while others highlight the importance of cybersecurity awareness campaigns in improving cyber users' awareness (Bahl, Sharma & Asghar, 2021;Nagyfejeo & von Solms, 2020).…”