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Cybersecurity maturity assessment framework for higher education institutions in Saudi Arabia

The Saudi Arabia government has proposed different frameworks such as the CITC’s Cybersecurity Regulatory Framework (CRF) and the NCA’s Essential Cybersecurity Controls (ECC) to ensure data and infrastructure security in all IT-based systems. However, these frameworks lack a practical, published mec...

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Autores principales: Almomani, Iman, Ahmed, Mohanned, Maglaras, Leandros
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8444074/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34604525
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.703
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author Almomani, Iman
Ahmed, Mohanned
Maglaras, Leandros
author_facet Almomani, Iman
Ahmed, Mohanned
Maglaras, Leandros
author_sort Almomani, Iman
collection PubMed
description The Saudi Arabia government has proposed different frameworks such as the CITC’s Cybersecurity Regulatory Framework (CRF) and the NCA’s Essential Cybersecurity Controls (ECC) to ensure data and infrastructure security in all IT-based systems. However, these frameworks lack a practical, published mechanism that continuously assesses the organizations’ security level, especially in HEI (Higher Education Institutions) systems. This paper proposes a Cybersecurity Maturity Assessment Framework (SCMAF) for HEIs in Saudi Arabia. SCMAF is a comprehensive, customized security maturity assessment framework for Saudi organizations aligned with local and international security standards. The framework can be used as a self-assessment method to establish the security level and highlight the weaknesses and mitigation plans that need to be implemented. SCMAF is a mapping and codification model for all regulations that the Saudi organizations must comply with. The framework uses different levels of maturity against which the security performance of each organization can be measured. SCMAF is implemented as a lightweight assessment tool that could be provided online through a web-based service or offline by downloading the tool to ensure the organizations’ data privacy. Organizations that apply this framework can assess the security level of their systems, conduct a gap analysis and create a mitigation plan. The assessment results are communicated to the organization using visual score charts per security requirement per level attached with an evaluation report.
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spelling pubmed-84440742021-09-30 Cybersecurity maturity assessment framework for higher education institutions in Saudi Arabia Almomani, Iman Ahmed, Mohanned Maglaras, Leandros PeerJ Comput Sci Computer Education The Saudi Arabia government has proposed different frameworks such as the CITC’s Cybersecurity Regulatory Framework (CRF) and the NCA’s Essential Cybersecurity Controls (ECC) to ensure data and infrastructure security in all IT-based systems. However, these frameworks lack a practical, published mechanism that continuously assesses the organizations’ security level, especially in HEI (Higher Education Institutions) systems. This paper proposes a Cybersecurity Maturity Assessment Framework (SCMAF) for HEIs in Saudi Arabia. SCMAF is a comprehensive, customized security maturity assessment framework for Saudi organizations aligned with local and international security standards. The framework can be used as a self-assessment method to establish the security level and highlight the weaknesses and mitigation plans that need to be implemented. SCMAF is a mapping and codification model for all regulations that the Saudi organizations must comply with. The framework uses different levels of maturity against which the security performance of each organization can be measured. SCMAF is implemented as a lightweight assessment tool that could be provided online through a web-based service or offline by downloading the tool to ensure the organizations’ data privacy. Organizations that apply this framework can assess the security level of their systems, conduct a gap analysis and create a mitigation plan. The assessment results are communicated to the organization using visual score charts per security requirement per level attached with an evaluation report. PeerJ Inc. 2021-09-09 /pmc/articles/PMC8444074/ /pubmed/34604525 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.703 Text en © 2021 Almomani et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Computer Science) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Computer Education
Almomani, Iman
Ahmed, Mohanned
Maglaras, Leandros
Cybersecurity maturity assessment framework for higher education institutions in Saudi Arabia
title Cybersecurity maturity assessment framework for higher education institutions in Saudi Arabia
title_full Cybersecurity maturity assessment framework for higher education institutions in Saudi Arabia
title_fullStr Cybersecurity maturity assessment framework for higher education institutions in Saudi Arabia
title_full_unstemmed Cybersecurity maturity assessment framework for higher education institutions in Saudi Arabia
title_short Cybersecurity maturity assessment framework for higher education institutions in Saudi Arabia
title_sort cybersecurity maturity assessment framework for higher education institutions in saudi arabia
topic Computer Education
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8444074/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34604525
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.703
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