UKZN academics recently presented at the 14th International Conference of Cyber Warfare and Security (ICCWS) hosted by Stellenbosch University and the CSIR.
Six papers from UKZN were presented at the conference. The conference exhibited over 50 full presentations and 12 postgraduate presentations in the PhD and Masters Colloquiums with presenters from 16 countries.
Dr Brett van Niekerk from the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science presented two papers, titled The Cyber Security Dilemma: A South African Perspective and Economic Information Warfare: Classifying Cyber-attacks against Commodity Value Chains.
Cyber security and cyber attacks have a growing prevalence in strategic international contexts, and these papers propose methods to model these aspects in a consistent manner.
Van Niekerk also chaired a session on Security for Cyber-Physical Systems. The drive for digital economies and smart infrastructures is resulting in heightened interconnectedness; with sensitive industrial control systems becoming increasingly targeted as they are exposed on the internet.
Dr Trishana Ramluckan from the School of Law presented two papers, titled: Social Media as a Declaration of war? and The Applicability of the Tallinn Manuals to South Africa.
She also chaired a session on Legal Perspectives to Cyber Warfare and Security. International cyber law has presented numerous challenges and her presentations focused on those challenges and the development of new international cyber legislation.
Van Niekerk’s PhD student, Mr Barend Pretorius from the School of Management, IT and Governance, who is co-supervised by Mr Karna Naidoo, presented on IIoT Security: Do I Really Need a Firewall for my Train?
Mr Weston Govere from the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, supervised by Professor Jonathan Blackledge, presented on Encryption Methodologies based on Floating Point Algorithms.
Ramluckan joined the College of Law and Management Studies in 2017 as a Research Facilitator and is currently a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the School of Law. Her research interests include IT governance and privacy legislation in education and international relations.
Van Niekerk joined the School of Computer Science at the end of 2017 and is currently lecturing the Honours cryptography and network security module and undergraduate modules. His research specialisation is in information security and cyber security.
Words: Leena Rajpal
