Thursday, 10 March 2011

Trends in Smartcard fraud Warning– Abstract: University of Strathclyde and Associates

Susan Burns, George R. S. Weir, Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G1 1XH, UK {susan.burns, george.weir}@cis.strath.ac.uk

University of Strathclyde and Associates: Abstract. The introduction of smartcard technologies has reduced the incidence of card fraud in the UK, but there are still significant losses from fraudulent card use. In this paper we detail the context of smartcard introduction and describe the types of fraud that remain a threat to cardholders and other stakeholders in the card system. We conclude with a risk analysis from the cardholder’s perspective and recommend greater cardholder awareness of such risks.

University of Strathclyde and Associates: Introduction. A recent report from the European Security Transport Association (ESTA) found that nearly 20% of the adult population in Great Britain has been targeted as part of a credit or debit card scam. As a result, the UK has been termed the ‘Card Fraud Capital of Europe’ [1], with UK citizens twice as likely to become victims of card fraud as other Europeans. Plastic card fraud is a lucrative exploit for criminals and the proceeds may be used to fund organised crime. Smart payment cards (Chip and PIN cards) were introduced in the UK to replace magnetic stripe cards and support PIN verification of card transactions. By the end of 2005, more than 107 million of the 141.6 million cards in the UK had been upgraded to smart cards [2]. Levels of plastic card fraud fell by 13% to £439.4 million in 2005 [3] and again to £428 million in 2006 (Figure 1). The reduction has been widely attributed to the rollout of smart cards with Chip and PIN authentication.

If the media is to be believed, the UK introduction of Chip and PIN authentication for credit and debit card transactions is flawed and has failed to reduce levels of card fraud across the board. Specific cases highlighting the security implications of smart card based technology have been widely reported, including exploits at Shell petrol stations [4] and Tesco self-service tills.

As cards are a widely accepted international form of payment, fraud can happen virtually anywhere in the world or on the Internet. Cards can be compromised in the UK and then used overseas. Cardwatch research shows that most of the fraud committed abroad on UK cards affects cards that have been compromised in the UK

Although the financial cost of card fraud is largely borne by the banking industry, the cardholder experiences loss of time in taking steps to resolve matters, as well as inconvenience, worry and frustration while a fraudulent incident is investigated. The cardholder’s credit rating can be affected and the whole affair can be a distressing experience.

Thursday, 3 March 2011

Strathclyde University and Associates: Virus Scam Warnings And Other Hoaxes

If you receive a 'virus or a scam warning' in your email, the first and only action you should take is to forward it to the Helpdesk, maybe copy the message to your Departmental Computing Officer, and await advice. We will check it out, and let you know if it is a genuine threat, whether anyone in the University is at risk, and whether we need to issue a general alert.

Strathclyde University and Associates: Guidelines For Dealing With Virus Warnings And Other Hoaxes - Do not forward it to everyone you know. If this warning did not come from your recognised IT support people (IT Services or your Departmental Computing Officer), then the chances are extremely high that it is a hoax. This is especially likely to be true if the mail was forwarded by a friend, even if they "know about these things".

Spotting Virus Hoaxes
Virus hoaxes are actually fairly easy to spot, once you've seen a few of them. They all use pretty much the same sort of language, lots of use of CAPITALS, usually mention some major IT company you've heard of (e.g., IBM, Microsoft, AOL) or some government, and almost always advise you to "pass it on to AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU KNOW". They often refer to dire consequences such as the destruction of "EVERYTHING on your hard drive". You can find out more about the characteristics of virus hoaxes at:
Strathclyde University and Associates: Guidelines For Dealing With Virus Warnings And Other Hoaxes - CIAC Internet Hoax Information: How To Identify A Hoax

Unless you're extremely unlucky, they first people who will receive information about new, real viruses are the virus vendors and the various organisations concerned with Internet security. These are the people who will send out alerts to relevant mailing lists, and put information about the viruses on their web pages. They won't mail "everyone on the Internet" to inform them about the virus. If you've asked to be kept informed about virus threats by registering on an email distribution list, then you will probably receive mail from them. If you haven't, and you receive mail about a virus purporting to be from an anti-virus software vendor, and it hasn't been forwarded by a friend or associate, then be extremely suspicious.

Strathclyde University and Associates: Guidelines For Dealing With Virus Warnings And Other Hoaxes - Other Hoaxes: More commonly seen now are other types of hoaxes; so-called 'phishing' attempts (messages from a bank or other financial site, asking you to confirm your identity and login details) and 419 scams (messages on behalf of the relatives of dead but rich people, often in unstable African states, who need assistance in transferring money out of their country).

Strathclyde University and Associates: New Faces at SESG

We have seen big changes at SESG over the past few months. Meet the new team!

Strathclyde University and Associates: Dr Jeremy Cockroft took over as director of SESG at the beginning of April 2006. He is supported by Dr Jon Hand and Dr Aizaz Samuel. We have a vacancy that we hope to fill soon. Here is a brief resume of the people now in the group: Jon has had experience as a practicing architect specializing in low energy buildings and alternative construction techniques. He is a simulation consultant in several continents, a software developer, and a mentor to companies embedding computational support for the design process. He possesses a particular aptitude for identifying simulation quality assurance weaknesses and developing improvement programmes for building design practitioners.

Strathclyde University and Associates: Aizaz has a background in advanced energy conservation measures. He is also an expert on modelling contaminant distribution in the indoor air quality field, using both network airflow and computational fluid dynamic modelling techniques. Jeremy was deeply involved in the early years of energy and air flow modelling, subsequently was a product development manager and business unit leader in the building controls industry, before returning to academia to support energy related consultancy services within the ESRU group. On taking over as Director of SESG, Jeremy said “When I think back to the pioneering days of building energy modelling and simulation, not so many years ago, the idea of building design practitioners using modeling software on a routine basis was a distant dream. Now we see these tools being used as an integral step in achieving building regulation compliance, which is an extraordinary achievement for the modelling community and those building designers who pioneered the use of these tools in their practice. But we have to keep moving forward; the modelling challenges are always with us. Now we face the need to look beyond just the building fabric and plant systems, and consider how energy flows interact at a community level, with increasing integration of renewable energy generation and interactions between fluctuating supplies and demands to manage the overall energy system balance. Scotland is ideally positioned as a renewable energy powerhouse, surrounded as we are with wind, wave and hydro resources to exploit, so we see our supporting role continuing to add value to the Scottish building design community as they develop new performance assessment services based on computational modeling technologies. Whilst we will continue to promote our seminar programme, I will be putting much more emphasis on direct engagement; getting out there and providing member with one-to-one support in achieving their goals. And I hope members won’t be slow in coming forward when they want us to assist them; after all, it is all free!”

Strathclyde is a great place to study and enjoy life at the same time. And this is where you can find out everything about us - from how we teach, to what's on in Glasgow and how to get around. We want to help you make the most of your time here, so we hope you'll come back to these pages to get all the latest news about what's happening on campus and in and around the city.

Strathclyde University and Associates: Scottish Energy Systems Group

A NEW FOCUS ON QUALITY: The building regulations update away back in 2002 introduced new flexibility into how compliance could be demonstrated. The novel carbon emissions based alternative offered a whole building approach to achieving targets compared to the prescriptive elemental approach which until then had been the only route. It occurred to many building design practitioners that traditional manual design calculation methods would not allow these opportunities to be fully explored.

Strathclyde University and Associates: Scottish Energy Systems Group: Dynamic computer modelling and simulation tools obviously could have a part to play, but where to start? What computational tool to use? What about hardware requirements, recruitment, training? Thus the Scottish Energy Systems Group was established, with funding from The Scottish Executive and Strathclyde European Partnership, to provide guidance and support to the industry. The objective was to give the Scottish building design community a head start in producing a better quality of building design, incorporating more innovation and new ideas, and with confidence that the solution would work as intended.

Strathclyde University and Associates: Scottish Energy Systems Group: Four years on, and a whole new set of regulations are being introduced, with target carbon emissions the only route to compliance. Now computer modelling is an almost indispensable tool for design evaluation, and indeed is becoming an integral part of the route to compliance (see article on New Building Regulations). Most of our members are using one of the various packages available, or at least have explored the possibilities via consultancy partnerships.

So what else is there to do?

Our philosophy from the outset has been total engagement with our members. That means not just putting on seminars and technology introduction workshops, valuable activities in themselves, but also getting out into members’ offices and working on real projects, setting up the technology within their working environment, even lending them the necessary hardware.

Strathclyde University and Associates: Scottish Energy Systems Group: Some members could now be described as pioneers; real leaders in the use of dynamic modelling tools applied to building systems design. Others have had a go, but things have fallen by the wayside, because in adopting the technology they did not adopt an integrated process to go with it. The focus was all on the tool, rather than on how modelling would fit into the overall design process. Starting up an airline is more than just deciding which aircraft to fly. Likewise, there is a lot more to consider in establishing building energy modelling than just which particular software package to go for. That is why, in this issue of HotNews, we are focussing on Quality Assurance (see article “Quality Assurance process for building modelling”). We want members to take a step back and look at how they are using their modelling tools. A good starting point would be to conduct an audit. And where to turn to for help with that? SESG of course! Even if you think you don’t have a problem, a half day of free, on-site consultancy could give you the reassurance you need. If you want to use modelling tools to develop Part L compliant designs, your modelling capabilities will be mission critical (in Scotland it will be Section 6, and a different route to compliance is being developed). We will continue to support this core service (we call it Supported Technology Deployment) with seminars on topical subjects (see the events section) which are often followed up by a technology introduction workshop that allows members to try out various computational approaches for themselves, and even to explore solutions to real live projects, with on-hand support from SESG staff. We will always seek to involve the “pioneers” in such events; they can relate the practicalities of reconciling business-as-usual with new ways of doing things. The usual pattern is that after attending a seminar, say on renewable technologies, a member sees benefits in being able to model, for example, building integrated renewables, and so attends a technology introduction workshop, led by an expert in the field. The next step is for the member to invite SESG staff to come to their office, help with installation of the software, ensure that quality assurance issues are dealt with, and leave the member up and running with a new capability, with occasional follow up sessions as required.

Strathclyde University and Associates: Scottish Energy Systems Group: If you are a Scotland based building design practitioner, installer or manufacturer, no matter how small your organisation might be, you can benefit from this service. How? Very simply, by becoming a member. A simple audit of your current process or evaluation of your needs will start you off, and we will further support you as you move to adopt your chosen packages and integrate their use into your practice. If your needs could be met through a development effort, we may be able to do that for you too. If you would like to have a chat about joining, please contact us at: Jeremy@sesg.strath.ac.uk,
0141 548 5765.
Strathclyde is a great place to study and enjoy life at the same time. And this is where you can find out everything about us - from how we teach, to what's on in Glasgow and how to get around. We want to help you make the most of your time here, so we hope you'll come back to these pages to get all the latest news about what's happening on campus and in and around the city.

Thursday, 17 February 2011

University of Strathclyde and Associates: Publications

University of Strathclyde and Associates: Publications: Scottish Chambers' Business Survey
The quarterly survey, produced in conjunction with the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, provides aggregated information by area and by sector on the general business and labour market situation of some 3,000 Scottish firms. The survey currently covers Scottish manufacturing, construction, wholesale, retail and tourism. A further report based on a quarterly survey of the Scottish oil and gas related sector, and conducted in collaboration with the Institute, is published by Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce.

University of Strathclyde and Associates: Publications: Customised Research
The Institute has completed a wide range of customised reports for public and private sector organisations within Scotland and beyond. Using a range of economic analysis tools these reports have ranged from reports on the impact of the Foot and Mouth outbreak on Scotland's economy, an impact study of Jersey's economy upon its environment and the impact of the arts and cultural sector in Scotland.

In addition, Institute staff have acted as advisers to both Westminster and Holyrood committees, public bodies and foreign governments.

University of Strathclyde and Associates: Publications: Raising the Return
The Institute, jointly with the Scottish Council Foundation, has released 'Raising the Return: Scotland's Public Assets'. The report, by economic consultant and Institute Associate Jo Armstrong consists of four short papers and examines the evidence on how effective Scotland's public sector has been in deploying the record-levels of funding it has received. A full press release is available from the media section of the website. Copies of the report, priced fifteen pounds, can be obtained from the Scottish Council Foundation.

University of Strathclyde and Associates: Publications: Major new addition to thinking on Scotland's future
New Wealth for Old Nations provides a guide to policy priorities in small or regional economies. It will be of interest to policymakers, students, and scholars seeking avenues to improved growth, greater opportunity, and better governance. Some of the world's leading economists combine their research insights with a discussion of the practicalities of implementing structural reforms. Scotland is the ideal case study: the recent devolution of government in the United Kingdom offers a natural experiment in political economy, one whose lessons apply to almost any small, advanced economy.

One fundamental conclusion is that policy can make a big difference to long-term prosperity in small economies open to flows of knowledge, investment, and migrants. Indeed the difficulty in introducing growth-oriented policies lies more in the politics of implementing change than in the theoretical diagnosis. Public sector governance is consequently a key issue in creating a pro-growth consensus. And faster growth must be seen to improve opportunities for the population as a whole. Further, setting out the evidence - as this book does for Scotland - is vital to overcoming entrenched institutional barriers to policy reform. The first chapter is by Jo Armstrong, John McLaren, and the editors; and the subsequent chapters are by Paul Krugman, William Baumol, Edward Glaeser, Paul Hallwood and Ronald MacDonald, James Heckman and Dimitriy Masterov, Heather Joshi and Robert Wright, Nicholas Crafts, and John Bradley.

Diane Coyle is a consultant and member of the United Kingdom's Competition Commission and a Visiting Professor at the University of Manchester's Institute of Political and Economic Governance. Wendy Alexander is a Member of the Scottish Parliament and former Scottish Minister for Enterprise, Transport, and Lifelong Learning. Brian Ashcroft is Professor of Economics and Policy Director of the Fraser of Allander Institute for Research on the Scottish Economy at the University of Strathclyde.

Strathclyde is a great place to study and enjoy life at the same time. And this is where you can find out everything about us - from how we teach, to what's on in Glasgow and how to get around. We want to help you make the most of your time here, so we hope you'll come back to these pages to get all the latest news about what's happening on campus and in and around the city.

Strathclyde University SCER Associates Part 2

Professor Ewart Keep. ESRC Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE). Professor Ewart Keep’s research interests include the links between skills and economic performance (broadly defined), the education and training policy formation process, employers’ perceptions of training and the factors that influence their willingness to invest in skills, 14-19 vocational education and training, higher education policy and the graduate labour market, lifelong learning, and the linkages between skills and people management issues.

Dr Scott Hurrell. University of Stirling. Scott Hurrell has recently been appointed to a lectureship in Work and Employment Studies in the Institute of Socio- Management at the University of Stirling, having previously worked in SCER and latterly at Aston University. One of Scott's main research interests is in the area of skills and work organisation with his PhD thesis examining soft skills deficits in Scotland, why these occurred and how employers responded to these. Scott also has interests in recruitment and selection, job quality and in organisations in the interactive service, public and non-profit sectors. Scott has worked with policy and public sector bodies including Futureskills Scotland, The Scottish Government, The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations and the Equal Opportunities Commission (Scotland).

Dr Henrietta Huzzell. University of Karlstad. Professor Jeff Hyman. University of Aberdeen. Professor Jeff Hyman has a long-standing research interest in the ways in which employees participate in decisions made at work and the effects of their involvement in terms of employee satisfaction, relations with managers and performance. Employee share schemes have provided a focus for this interest. In the past few years, he has also been involved in research exploring new directions in work, exploring concepts and practice of work-life balance in sectors such as finance, software and in call centres with a particular emphasis on developments in Scotland where these sectors have become dominant areas for employment and for the local economy.

Professor Csaba Mako. Hungarian Academy of Sciences . Csaba Makó is specialized in organizational changes (innovations), learning organisation and in their institutional (eg labour relations) contexts in an international perspective. He received Academic Doctors’ Title in Sociology (1983). Presently, he has a position as a Research Director at the Institute of Sociology – Hungarian Academy of Sciences and involved in numerous national and international projects. Some of the recent international projects:
Beside research responsibilities, Csaba Makó has full time professorship at the Debrecen University – Department of Economics and is a head of the Ph.D. School in Economics (since: 2004).

Dr Steve Paton. University of Strathclyde. Steve’s research addresses the nature of contemporary work focusing on the areas of knowledge in work and the management of the knowledge resources of the firm. Current activity is primarily focused on the generation of operational strategies of organizations and their attempts to create competitive advantage by increasing their activity in the areas of creative work and innovation and expanding their service provision and therefore moving up the value chain. Steve has published in the areas of change management and the management of knowledge work.

Dr Diane van de Broek. University of Sydney. Diane van den Broek's research and publishing interests relate to management and labour process issues within the service economy, most recently this has involved the changing relationships around technology, professionalism and deskilling within call centres. She has also been involved in an international study, in collaboration with researchers in Scotland and Sweden researchers on aesthetic labour in the retail industry. Two other projects Diane is working on include the matching of graduate attributes with employability, and variations around occupational identity.

Strathclyde is a great place to study and enjoy life at the same time. And this is where you can find out everything about us - from how we teach, to what's on in Glasgow and how to get around. We want to help you make the most of your time here, so we hope you'll come back to these pages to get all the latest news about what's happening on campus and in and around the city.

Strathclyde University SCER Associates Part 1

Professor Tom Baum. University of Strathclyde. Tom Baum's research focuses on people and work in low skills service industries, notably the hospitality and tourism sectors. His work considers HR themes both from a macro perspective in terms of planning and structural dimensions and in terms of the inter-face between employyes and customers at the level of the individual enterprise. Tom's work is internationally focused and includes research in a range of European, Asian, African and Pacific region contexts. He has published widely in the field with seven books and over 150 academic papers. He has also consulted with governments, international donor agencies and the private sector and appeared as an expert witness in international arbitration courts.

Professor Sharon Bolton: University of Strathclyde. Sharon C Bolton is Professor of Organisational Analysis at Strathclyde University Business School, Glasgow, UK. Her research interests include emotion in organisations, public sector management, nursing and teaching, gender and the professions, dignity in and at work, the human in human resource management. She is currently working on comparative research on dignity at work in Europe, with a focus on Greece and the UK and also gender, education and knowledge transfer across international boundaries. Sharon continues to be interested in developing more nuanced understandings of emotion at work, and the labour and skill involved in the emotional labour process. Research is published widely in leading international sociology and management journals such as Work, Employment and Society; Sociology; Journal of Management Studies; Gender, Work and Organisation, Sociologia Del Trabajo, Economia & Management and practitioner periodicals such as People Management and Personnel Today. A sole authored book ‘Emotion Management in the Workplace’ was published by Palgrave in 2005 followed by two edited collections in 2007: ‘Searching for the Human in Human Resource Management’ (with Maeve Houlihan) (Palgrave) and ‘Dimensions of Dignity at Work’ (Elsevier) and a new edited collection ‘Work Matters’ (with Maeve Houlihan) published by Palgrave in April 2009.

Dr John Buchanan. University of Sydney.
Dr Asaf Darr. University of Haifa. Asaf Darr studied Organizational Behaviour at the School of Industrial and Labour Relations, Cornell University. He is currently a senior lecturer in Organization Studies at the University of Haifa, and the Head of the Organization Studies program. In addition to many articles, he is the author of Selling Technology: The Changing Shape of Sales in an Information Economy, published in 2006 by Cornell University Press. His current research is on the social fabric of mass markets and on sales work and sales workers.

Doris Eikhof. University of Stirling. Doris Ruth Eikhof is Lecturer in Organization Studies at the Department of Management, University of Stirling, and Research Associate at the Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Austria. Her research interests include creative industries, changing forms of work and organization, organizational boundaries, organizations and lifestyles and social theories in organization studies. She has published in international and German academic books and journals, including Journal of Organizational Behavior, Creativity and Innovation Management and edited volumes to be published by Palgrave and Routledge. Recent collaboration with SCeR has included joint publications and editorships, the organization of conference streams for EGOS and ILPC and a comparative project on European football as an employment system.

Dr Richard Hall. University of Sydney. Professor Axel Haunschild. University of Trier. Axel Haunschild is Professor of Work, Employment and Organisation at the University of Trier, Germany. He is also Guest Professor of Human Resource Management at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and at the School of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London. His research interests focus on changing forms of work and organisation, employment systems in the creative industries, the institutional embeddedness of work and employment, and the boundaries between work and life. He has published in journals such as Human Relations, British Journal of Industrial Relations, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Creativity and Innovation Management and Journal of Organizational Behavior. Recent work with SCER has included the organisation of conference streams (ILPC, EGOS), joint publications and editorships as well a comparative project on national employment systems in professional football

Strathclyde is a great place to study and enjoy life at the same time. And this is where you can find out everything about us - from how we teach, to what's on in Glasgow and how to get around. We want to help you make the most of your time here, so we hope you'll come back to these pages to get all the latest news about what's happening on campus and in and around the city.