Using the Latin Square Design Model in the Prioritzation of Network Security Threats: A Quantitative Study

Abstract

Society is becoming increasingly dependent on cyberspace for both business and pleasure. Cyber attackers continue to attack organizational computer networks, as those same computer networks become increasing critical to organizational business process. Strategic planning and managing IT security risks play an important role in the business and government planning process. Deploying defense in depth security measures can ensure that organizations continue to function in times of crisis. This quantitative study explores whether the Latin Square Design (LSD) model can be effectively applied to the prioritization of cybersecurity threats and to the linking of information assurance defense in-depth measures to those threats. The methods used in this study consisted of scanning 10 Cybersecurity Websites such as the Department of Homeland Security US CERT (United States-Computer Emergency Readiness Team [1]) and the SANS Institute (SysAdmin, Audit, Network and Security [2]) using the Likert Scale Model for the Website’s top ten list of cyber threats facing organizations and the network defense in depth measures to fight those threats. A comparison of each cybersecurity threats was then made using LSD to determine whether the Likert scale and the LSD model could be effectively applied to prioritize information assurance measures to protect organizational computing devices. The findings of the research reject the H0 null hypothesis that LSD does not affect the relationship between the ranking of 10 Cybersecurity websites top ten cybersecurity threats dependent variables and the independent variables of defense in depth measures used in protecting organizational devices against cyber-attacks.