Information Security Risk Assessment

Information security risk assessment is an important part of enterprises’ management practices that helps to identify, quantify, and prioritize risks against criteria for risk acceptance and objectives relevant to the organization. Risk management refers to a process that consists of identification, management, and elimination or reduction of the likelihood of events that can negatively affect the resources of the information system to reduce security risks that potentially have the ability to affect the information system, subject to an acceptable cost of protection means that contain a risk analysis, analysis of the “cost-effectiveness” parameter, and selection, construction, and testing of the security subsystem, as well as the study of all aspects of security.

Carbon Tail Risk

Strong regulatory actions are needed to combat climate change, but climate policy uncertainty makes it difficult for investors to quantify the impact of future climate regulation. We show that such uncertainty is priced in the option market. The cost of option protection against downside tail risks is larger for firms with more carbon-intense business models. For carbon-intense firms, the cost of protection against downside tail risk is magnified at times when the public’s attention to climate change spikes, and it decreased after the election of climate change skeptic President Trump.

Comparison of Cost of Protection against Differential Power Analysis of Selected Authenticated Ciphers

Authenticated ciphers, which combine the cryptographic services of confidentiality, integrity, and authentication into one algorithmic construct, can potentially provide improved security and efficiencies in the processing of sensitive data. However, they are vulnerable to side-channel attacks such as differential power analysis (DPA). Although the Test Vector Leakage Assessment (TVLA) methodology has been used to confirm improved resistance of block ciphers to DPA after application of countermeasures, extension of TVLA to authenticated ciphers is non-trivial, since authenticated ciphers have expanded input and output requirements, complex interfaces, and long test vectors which include protocol necessary to describe authenticated cipher operations. In this research, we upgrade the FOBOS test architecture with capability to perform TVLA on authenticated ciphers. We show that FPGA implementations of the CAESAR Round 3 candidates ACORN, Ascon, CLOC (with AES and TWINE primitives), SILC (with AES, PRESENT, and LED primitives), JAMBU (with AES and SIMON primitives), and Ketje Jr.; as well as AES-GCM, are vulnerable to 1st order DPA. We then use threshold implementations to protect the above cipher implementations against 1st order DPA, and verify the effectiveness of countermeasures using the TVLA methodology. Finally, we compare the unprotected and protected cipher implementations in terms of area, performance (maximum frequency and throughput), throughput-to-area (TP/A) ratio, power, and energy per bit (E/bit). Our results show that ACORN consumes the lowest number of resources, has the highest TP/A ratio, and is the most energy-efficient of all DPA-resistant implementations. However, Ketje Jr. has the highest throughput.

Trichogramma: an egg parasitoid of crop pests

Use of insecticides to manage the emerging pest problems in the different crop being taken by farmers in their field. Today, due to indiscriminate use of insecticide, the agriculture produces getting contaminated and traced in food channel. For the reason, many farmers moving towards organic farming to produce pesticide free foods. In this context, control of emerging pest problem through biological control could be the better alternative. The egg parasitoids, Trichogramma being a major and efficient biocontrol agent for management of major lepidopteran pests in different corps. In India, great diversity of Trichogramma reported, hence, use of these egg parasitoids can cut the insecticidal application and same time cost of protection of farmers.

The Abolition of Antidumping Measures in the EU: An Example and Inspiration for the TTIP

The European Union (EU) is one of the main users of the antidumping instrument. The EU is also a unique example of a regional trade agreement that has abolished the use of antidumping measures in force between the integrating parties. The chapter analyzes the effects on trade of imposing and abolishing antidumping measures in the EU based on empirical evidence. The imposition of antidumping measures is analyzed from the points of effectiveness, that is, if the protection is effective as regards EU producers, the exporters of allegedly dumped products and third country exporters; and efficiency, that is, the cost of protection for EU user industry and consumers. The abolition of antidumping measures is analyzed from the point of injury to EU producers when it comes to price undercutting and loss of market shares; and possible changes in the use of the antidumping instrument against third countries. The chapter also analyses the antidumping measures between the EU and the United States, as well as the experiences with abolishing antidumping measures in the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA) as an inspiration for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations.