Insider threats: the major challenge to security risk management

Security risk management is by definition, a subjective and complex exercise and it takes time to perform properly. Human resources are fundamental assets for any organization, and as any other asset, they have inherent vulnerabilities that need to be handled, i.e. managed and assessed. However, the nature that characterize the human behavior and the organizational environment where they develop their work turn these task extremely difficult, hard to accomplish and prone to errors. Assuming security as a cost, organizations are usually focused on the efficiency of the security mechanisms implemented that enable them to protect against external attacks, disregarding the insider risks, which are much more difficult to assess. All these demands an interdisciplinary approach in order to combine technical solutions with psychology approaches in order to understand the organizational staff and detect any changes in their behaviors and characteristics. This paper intends to discuss some methodological challenges to evaluate the insider threats and its impacts, and integrate them in a security risk framework, that was defined according to the security standard ISO/IEC_JTC1, to support the security risk management process.

Design of a case-based reasoner for information security in military organizations

Information security is concerned with the protection of information, which can be stored, processed or transmitted within critical information systems of the organizations, against loss of confidentiality, integrity or availability. Protection measures to prevent these problems result through the implementation of controls at several dimensions: technical, administrative or physical. A vital objective for military organizations is to ensure superiority in contexts of information warfare and competitive intelligence. Therefore, the problem of information security in military organizations has been a topic of intensive work at both national and transnational levels, and extensive conceptual and standardization work is being produced. A current effort is therefore to develop automated decision support systems to assist military decision makers, at different levels in the command chain, to provide suitable control measures that can effectively deal with potential attacks and, at the same time, prevent, detect and contain vulnerabilities targeted at their information systems. The concept and processes of the Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) methodology outstandingly resembles classical military processes and doctrine, in particular the analysis of “lessons learned” and definition of “modes of action”. Therefore, the present paper addresses the modeling and design of a CBR system with two key objectives: to support an effective response in context of information security for military organizations; to allow for scenario planning and analysis for training and auditing processes.

Strategic planning of electricity systems: Integrating renewable energies

Tese de Doutoramento - Programa Doutoral em Engenharia Industrial e Sistemas (PDEIS)

A liberdade de circulação de pessoas no contexto da cidadania da União Europeia: acesso aos benefícios sociais

Dissertação de mestrado em Direitos Humanos

Sustentabilidade no Design: uma abordagem aos resíduos limpos das indústrias do calçado

Dissertação de mestrado em Design e Marketing

A radiofrequency identification system for the 60 GHz ISM band

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia Biomédica (área de especialização em Eletrónica Médica)

Automatic eye blink detection using consumer web cameras

This research aims to advance blinking detection in the context of work activity. Rather than patients having to attend a clinic, blinking videos can be acquired in a work environment, and further automatically analyzed. Therefore, this paper presents a methodology to perform the automatic detection of eye blink using consumer videos acquired with low-cost web cameras. This methodology includes the detection of the face and eyes of the recorded person, and then it analyzes the low-level features of the eye region to create a quantitative vector. Finally, this vector is classified into one of the two categories considered —open and closed eyes— by using machine learning algorithms. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology was demonstrated since it provides unbiased results with classification errors under 5%

Videovigilância: privacidade e segurança: análise especial da situação do trabalhador

Dissertação de mestrado em Direitos Humanos

Food safety in wine: removal of ochratoxin A in contaminated white wine using commercial fining agents

The presence of mycotoxins in foodstuff is a matter of concern for food safety. Mycotoxins are toxic secondary metabolites produced by certain molds, being ochratoxin A (OTA) one of the most relevant. Wines can also be contaminated with these toxicants. Several authors have demonstrated the presence of mycotoxins in wine, especially ochratoxin A (OTA) [1]. Its chemical structure is a dihydro-isocoumarin connected at the 7-carboxy group to a molecule of L--phenylalanine via an amide bond. As these toxicants can never be completely removed from the food chain, many countries have defined levels in food in order to attend health concerns. OTA contamination of wines might be a risk to consumer health, thus requiring treatments to achieve acceptable standards for human consumption [2]. The maximum acceptable level of OTA in wines is 2.0 g/kg according to the Commission regulation No. 1881/2006 [3]. Therefore, the aim of this work was to reduce OTA to safer levels using different fining agents, as well as their impact on white wine physicochemical characteristics. To evaluate their efficiency, 11 commercial fining agents (mineral, synthetic, animal and vegetable proteins) were used to get new approaches on OTA removal from white wine. Trials (including a control without addition of a fining agent) were performed in white wine artificially supplemented with OTA (10 µg/L). OTA analysis were performed after wine fining. Wine was centrifuged at 4000 rpm for 10 min and 1 mL of the supernatant was collected and added of an equal volume of acetonitrile/methanol/acetic acid (78:20:2 v/v/v). Also, the solid fractions obtained after fining, were centrifuged (4000 rpm, 15 min), the resulting supernatant discarded, and the pellet extracted with 1 mL of the above solution and 1 mL of H2O. OTA analysis was performed by HPLC with fluorescence detection according to Abrunhosa and Venâncio [4]. The most effective fining agent in removing OTA (80%) from white wine was a commercial formulation that contains gelatine, bentonite and activated carbon. Removals between 10-30% were obtained with potassium caseinate, yeast cell walls and pea protein. With bentonites, carboxymethylcellulose, polyvinylpolypyrrolidone and chitosan no considerable OTA removal was verified. Following, the effectiveness of seven commercial activated carbons was also evaluated and compared with the commercial formulation that contains gelatine, bentonite and activated carbon. The different activated carbons were applied at the concentration recommended by the manufacturer in order to evaluate their efficiency in reducing OTA levels. Trial and OTA analysis were performed as explained previously. The results showed that in white wine all activated carbons except one reduced 100% of OTA. The commercial formulation that contains gelatine, bentonite and activated carbon (C8) reduced only 73% of OTA concentration. These results may provide useful information for winemakers, namely for the selection of the most appropriate oenological product for OTA removal, reducing wine toxicity and simultaneously enhancing food safety and wine quality.

Contribution to an efficient transmission of information to the textile fashion consumer and the influence in sustainable attitudes

The concepts involved in sustainable textile fashion, demanding good knowledge about raw materials, processes, end use properties and circuits amongst others, are able to determine the way the textile product is designed and the behavior of the consumer, regarding life style and buying decisions. The textile product`s life integrates raw materials, their processing, distribution, use by the consumer and destination of the product after useful lifetime, this is, his complete life cycle. It is very important to recognize the power of the consumer to influence parameters related to sustainability, namely when he decides how, when and why he buys and afterwards by the attitudes taken during and after use. The conscious act of consumption involves ethical, ecological and technical knowledge in which the concern is overall lifecycle of the fashion product and not exclusively aesthetic and symbolic values strongly related with its ephemeral nature. The present work proposes the classification of textile products by means of an innovative label aiming to establish a rating related to the Life of Fashion Products, by using parameters considered with especial impact in lifecycle, as textile fibers, processing conditions, generated wastes, commercialization circuits, durability and cleaning procedures. This label for sustainable fashion products aims to assist the stakeholders with informed attitudes and correct decisions in order to promote the objectives of sustainable fashion near designers, consumers and industrial experts.