Collaborators:
Namibia University of Science and Technology Staff Members (FCI): Fungai Bhunu Shava, Attlee Gamundani, Mercy Bere, Isaac Nhamu, Mbaunguraije Tjikuzu, Shadreck Chitauro, Huzin Jazri. Hein Venter (University of Pretoria), Darelle van Greunen (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University), Marco Maartens (Namibia University of Science and Technology), Jill Slay (University of New South Wales ADFA, Australia), Dr Amelia Phillips (Highline College, USA)
Research Background:
The digital information age has brought about major changes in the way the Namibian society does business and communicates. The community has evolved to:
- Use social networking forum such as Facebook, Twitter and Whatsup as the main tool for communication
- Depend on smartphones which avail the possibility for people in remote areas to use the telecommunication service to access the World Wide Web and social tools anytime.
- Incorporate business and social transactions over the efficient, smarter and advanced ICTs.
- Become part of the global village
According to World Internet Usage Statistics the number of users and devices connected to the internet has risen tremendously over the years, with Africa having the largest growth rate of 2,988.4 % in 2010-2011. Among these users are the cyber criminals. With increased dependency on the insecure internet from businesses, society and government alike, cyber criminals have been availed with:
- more easy targets
- efficient, unregulated medium for automating online crime
The adoption of WACS, a high speed fibre technology which enhances efficient communication and productivity, better cloud computing connection also exposes the nation, organisations and communities to more vulnerability.
Bank card cloning, fraudulent transfers of finances into criminal accounts and internet bullying are on the rise in our society.
Research Aim
- Digital Forensics and Information Security group was established in 2012 with three objectives: 1.Making the internet safer place for our nation;
- Making organisations, institutions and critical infrastructure more secure;
- Detecting and reporting on inappropriate and illegal use of ICT.
As a research group we acknowledge the use of the internet for personal, business and government functions. However in embracing internet usage, there comes many security breaches associated with internet usage. These include things like identity theft, information theft, online privacy breaches, social engineering, phishing, etc.
This research group focuses on making the internet more secure and a safe place for civil society and government. This will increase productivity as less time will be spent on detecting and recovering from cyber-attacks. As we develop the outcomes desired in Vision 2030, we observe that Namibian society has caught up with the Information revolution, and more individuals and Small to Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) are doing business online.
Thus the group wants to sensitise the public on these issues and also educate the general public how they can proactively mitigate/ protect themselves /their businesses/ government from these security threats. In addition we also aim to contribute to international internet security community in finding state of the art security internet security solutions to these ever increasing internet security breaches.
The group is dedicated to actively raise the quality of every child’s experience while online as part of the first objective. We wish to ensure that every Namibian citizen enjoys the advancement of life through the use of technology especially the internet as an enabler.
Current Projects:
- Making organisations, institutions and the Internet Safer
- Critical infrastructure security
- Secure smart cities
- Detecting and reporting on appropriate and illegal use of ICT
- Forensic Computing (Cloud and SSD forensics)
- Internet of things security
- User experience of Information Security
- End user security awareness
- Human Computer Interaction Security
- Child online Protection (COP)