Security information sharing via Twitter: 'Heartbleed' as a case study

Abstract

Abstract:The current paper outlines an exploratory case study in which we examined the extent to which specific communities of Twitter users engaged with the debate about the security threat known as 'Heartbleed' in the first few days after this threat was exposed. The case study explored which professional groups appeared to lead the debate about Heartbleed, the nature of the communication (tweets and retweets), and evidence about behaviour change. Using keywords from the Twitter user profiles, six occupational groups were identified, each of which were likely to have a direct interest in learning about Heartbleed (including legal, financial, entrepreneurial, press, and IT professionals). The groups participated to different degrees in the debate about Heartbleed. This exploratory case study provides an insight into information sharing, potential communities of influence, and points for future research in the absence of a voice of authority in the field of cybersecurity.Keywords: Heartbleed; tweet content; influence; behavioural change. Pam Briggs holds a Chair in Applied Psychology (PaCT Lab, Northumbria University), delivering innovative research and consultancy around issues of identity, trust and security in new social media. Her research interests include understanding personal information disclosure, trust in electronic media, and online privacy.

Text based steganography

“…This would make Stegaid far more secure in that data is hidden but if discovered, still encrypted. Given recent developments with the Heartbleed bug in OpenSSL (Jeske et al, 2017;Harran et al, 2017) it makes sense to have an additional level of security beyond encryption.…”

The Tweet Advantage: An Empirical Analysis of 0-Day Vulnerability Information Shared on Twitter

“…Apart from spam abuse and security information detection, Twitter was used as an information source for empirical investigations in the field of information security. For example, Jeske et al [17] examined the extent to which specific communities of Twitter users were engaged in the debate about the Heartbleed security bug. Moreover, Syed et al [34] conducted an empirical study to identify the major content categories contained in vulnerability discussions on Twitter and what factors impact the Re-tweeting of these contents.…”