Five safes

The Five Safes is a framework for helping make decisions about making effective use of data which is confidential or sensitive. It is mainly used to describe or design research access to statistical data held by government and health agencies, and by data archives such as the UK Data Service. It is not an internationally accepted standard. Two of the Five Safes refer to statistical disclosure control, and so the Five Safes is usually used to contrast statistical and non-statistical controls when comparing data management options. == Concept == The Five Safes proposes that data management decisions be considered as solving problems in five 'dimensions': projects, people, settings, data and outputs. The combination of the controls leads to 'safe use'. These are most commonly expressed as questions, for example: These dimensions are scales, not limits. That is, solutions can have a mix of more or fewer controls in each dimension, but the overall aim of 'safe use' independent of the particular mix. For example, a public use file available for open download cannot control who uses it, where or for what purpose, and so all the control (protection) must be in the data itself. In contrast, a file which is only accessed through a secure environment with certified users can contain very sensitive information: the non-statistical controls allow the data to be 'unsafe'. One academic likened the process to a graphic equalizer, where bass and treble can be combined independently to produce a sound the listener likes, which has proven to be a very useful metaphor. This 2023 Data Foundation webinar is an expert discussion of how the elements interact, including an excellent introductory representation. There is no 'order' to the Five Safes, in that one is necessarily more important than the others. However, Ritchie argued that the 'managerial' controls (projects, people, setting) should be addressed before the 'statistical' controls (data, output). The Five Safes concept is associated with other topics which developed from the same programme at ONS, although these are not necessarily implemented. Safe people is associated with 'active researcher management', while safe outputs is linked with principles-based output statistical disclosure control. The Five Safes is a positive framework, describing what is and is not. The EDRU ('evidence-based, default-open, risk-managed, user-centred') attitudinal model is sometimes used to give a normative context == The 'data access spectrum' == From 2003 the Five Safes was also represented in a simpler form as a 'Data Access Spectrum'. The non-data controls (project, people, setting, outputs) tend to work together, in that organisations often see these as a complementary set of restrictions on access. These can then be contrasted with choices about data anonymisation to present a linear representation of data access options. This presentation is consistent with the idea of 'data as a residual', as well as data protection laws of the time which often characterised data simply as anonymous or not anonymous. A similar idea had already been developed independently in 2001 by Chuck Humphrey of the Canadian RDC network, the 'continuum of access'. More recently, The Open Data Institute has developed a 'Data Spectrum toolkit' which includes industry-specific examples. == History and terminology == The Five Safes was devised in the winter of 2002/2003 by Felix Ritchie at the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) to describe its secure remote-access Virtual Microdata Laboratory (VML). It was described at this time as the 'VML Security Model'. This was adopted by the NORC data enclave, and more widely in the US, as the 'portfolio model' (although this is now also used to refer to a slightly different legal/statistical/educational breakdown). In 2012 the framework as was still being referred to as the 'VML security model', but its increasing use among non-UK organisations led to the adoption of the more general and informative phrase 'Five Safes'. The original framework only had four safes (projects, people, settings and outputs): the framework was used to describe highly detailed data access through a secure environment, and so the 'data' dimension was irrelevant. From 2007 onwards, 'safe data' was included as the framework was used to a describe a wider range of ONS activities. As the US version was based upon the 2005 specification, some US iterations uses have the original four dimensions (eg). Some discussions, such as the OECD, use the term 'secure' instead 'safe'. However, the use of both these terms can cause presentational problems: less control in a particular dimension could be seen to imply 'unsafe users' or 'insecure settings', for example, which distracts from the main message. Hence, the Australian government uses the term "five data sharing principles". The 'Anonymisation Decision-Making Framework' uses a framework based on the Five Safes but relabelling "projects", "people", and "settings" as "governance", "agency" and "infrastructure", respectively; "Output" is omitted, and "safe use" becomes "functional anonymisation". There is no reference to the Five Safes or any associated literature. The Australian version was required to include references to the Five Safes, and presented it as an alternative without comment. == Application == The framework has had three uses: pedagogical, descriptive, and design. Since 2016, it has also been used, directly and indirectly in legislation. See for more detailed examples. === Pedagogy === The first significant use of the framework, other than internal administrative use, was to structure researcher training courses at the UK Office for National Statistics from 2003. UK Data Archive, Administrative Data Research Network, Eurostat, Statistics New Zealand, the Mexican National Institute of Statistics and Geography, NORC, Statistics Canada and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, amongst others, have also used this framework. Most of these courses are for researchers using restricted-access facilities; the Eurostat courses are unusual in that they are designed for all users of sensitive data. === Description === The framework is often used to describe existing data access solutions (e.g. UK HMRC Data Lab, UK Data Service, Statistics New Zealand) or planned/conceptualised ones (e.g. Eurostat in 2011). An early use was to help identify areas where ONS' still had 'irreducible risks' in its provision of secure remote access. The framework is mostly used for confidential social science data. To date it appears to have made little impact on medical research planning, although it is now included in the revised guidelines on implementing HIPAA regulations in the US, and by Cancer Research UK and the Health Foundation in the UK. It has also been used to describe a security model for the Scottish Health Informatics Programme. === Design === In general the Five Safes has been used to describe solutions post-factum, and to explain/justify choices made, but an increasing number of organisations have used the framework to design data access solutions. For example, the Hellenic Statistical Agency developed a data strategy built around the Five Safes in 2016; the UK Health Foundation used the Five Safes to design its data management and training programmes. Use in the private sector is less common but some organisations have incorporated the Five Safes into consulting services. In 2015 the UK Data Service organized a workshop to encourage data users from the academic and private sectors to think about how to manage confidential research data, using the Five Safes to demonstrate alternative options and best practice. Early adopters for strategic design use were in Australia: both the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Department of Social Service used the Five Safes as an ex ante design tool. In 2017 the Australian Productivity Commission recommended adopting a version of the framework to support cross-government data sharing and re-use. This underwent extensive consultation and culminated in the DAT Act 2022. Since 2020 the Five Safes has been the overriding framework for the design of new secure facilities and data sharing arrangements in the UK for public health and social sciences. This has been promoted by the Office for Statistics Regulation, the UK Statistics Authority, NHS DIgital, and the research funding bodies Administrative Data Research UK and DARE UK. === Regulation and legislation === Three laws have incorporated the Fives Safes. They are explicit in the South Australian Public Sector (Data Sharing) Act 2016, and implicit in the research provisions of the UK Digital Economy Act 2017. The Australian Data Availability and Transparency Act 2022 renames the Five Safes as the Five Data Sharing Principles.A 2025 statutory review of the DAT Act 2022 found "that the DAT Act has not been effective in achieving its objectives.". The review includes specific referen

ELIZA

ELIZA is an early natural language processing computer program developed from 1964 to 1967 at MIT by Joseph Weizenbaum. Created to explore communication between humans and machines, ELIZA simulated conversation by using a pattern matching and substitution methodology that gave users an illusion of understanding on the part of the program, but gave no response that could be considered really understanding what was being said by either party. Whereas the ELIZA program itself was written (originally) in MAD-SLIP, the pattern matching directives that contained most of its language capability were provided in separate "scripts", represented in a Lisp-like expression. The most famous script, DOCTOR, simulated a psychotherapist of the Rogerian school (in which the therapist often reflects back the patient's words to the patient), and used rules, dictated in the script, to respond with non-directional questions to user inputs. As such, ELIZA was one of the first chatbots (originally "chatterbots") and one of the first programs capable of attempting the Turing test. Weizenbaum intended the program as a method to explore communication between humans and machines. He was surprised that some people, including his secretary, attributed human-like feelings to the computer program, a phenomenon that came to be called the ELIZA effect. Many academics believed that the program would be able to positively influence the lives of many people, particularly those with psychological issues, and that it could aid doctors working on such patients' treatment. While ELIZA was capable of engaging in discourse, it could not converse with true understanding. However, many early users were convinced of ELIZA's intelligence and understanding, despite Weizenbaum's insistence to the contrary. The original ELIZA source code had been missing since its creation in the 1960s, as it was not common to publish articles that included source code at that time. However, more recently the MAD-SLIP source code was discovered in the MIT archives and published on various platforms, such as the Internet Archive. The source code is of high historical interest since it demonstrates not only the specificity of programming languages and techniques at that time, but also the beginning of software layering and abstraction as a means of achieving sophisticated software programming. == Overview == Joseph Weizenbaum's ELIZA, running the DOCTOR script, created a conversational interaction somewhat similar to what might take place in the office of "a [non-directive] psychotherapist in an initial psychiatric interview" and to "demonstrate that the communication between man and machine was superficial". While ELIZA is best known for acting in the manner of a psychotherapist, the speech patterns are due to the data and instructions supplied by the DOCTOR script. ELIZA itself examined the text for keywords, applied values to said keywords, and transformed the input into an output; the script that ELIZA ran determined the keywords, set the values of keywords, and set the rules of transformation for the output. Weizenbaum chose to make the DOCTOR script in the context of psychotherapy to "sidestep the problem of giving the program a data base of real-world knowledge", allowing it to reflect back the patient's statements to carry the conversation forward. The result was a somewhat intelligent-seeming response that reportedly deceived some early users of the program. Weizenbaum named his program ELIZA after Eliza Doolittle, a working-class character in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion (also appearing in the musical My Fair Lady, which was based on the play and was hugely popular at the time). According to Weizenbaum, ELIZA's ability to be "incrementally improved" by various users made it similar to Eliza Doolittle, since Eliza Doolittle was taught to speak with an upper-class accent in Shaw's play. However, unlike the human character in Shaw's play, ELIZA is incapable of learning new patterns of speech or new words through interaction alone. Edits must be made directly to ELIZA's active script in order to change the manner by which the program operates. Weizenbaum first implemented ELIZA in his own SLIP list-processing language, where, depending upon the initial entries by the user, the illusion of human intelligence could appear, or be dispelled through several interchanges. Some of ELIZA's responses were so convincing that Weizenbaum and several others have anecdotes of users becoming emotionally attached to the program, occasionally forgetting that they were conversing with a computer. Weizenbaum's own secretary reportedly asked Weizenbaum to leave the room so that she and ELIZA could have a real conversation. Weizenbaum was surprised by this, later writing: "I had not realized ... that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people." In 1966, interactive computing (via a teletype) was new. It was 11 years before the personal computer became familiar to the general public, and three decades before most people encountered attempts at natural language processing in Internet services like Ask.com or PC help systems such as Microsoft Office Clippit. Although those programs included years of research and work, ELIZA remains a milestone because it was the first time a programmer had attempted such a human-machine interaction with the goal of creating the illusion (however brief) of human–human interaction. At the ICCC 1972, ELIZA was brought together with another early artificial-intelligence program named PARRY for a computer-only conversation. While ELIZA was built to speak as a doctor, PARRY was intended to simulate a patient with schizophrenia. == Design and implementation == Weizenbaum originally wrote ELIZA in MAD-SLIP for CTSS on an IBM 7094 as a program to make natural-language conversation possible with a computer. To accomplish this, Weizenbaum identified five "fundamental technical problems" for ELIZA to overcome: the identification of key words, the discovery of a minimal context, the choice of appropriate transformations, the generation of responses in the absence of key words, and the provision of an editing capability for ELIZA scripts. Weizenbaum solved these problems and made ELIZA such that it had no built-in contextual framework or universe of discourse. However, this required ELIZA to have a script of instructions on how to respond to inputs from users. ELIZA starts its process of responding to an input by a user by first examining the text input for a "keyword". A "keyword" is a word designated as important by the acting ELIZA script, which assigns to each keyword a precedence number, or a RANK, designed by the programmer. If such words are found, they are put into a "keystack", with the keyword of the highest RANK at the top. The input sentence is then manipulated and transformed as the rule associated with the keyword of the highest RANK directs. For example, when the DOCTOR script encounters words such as "alike" or "same", it would output a message pertaining to similarity, in this case "In what way?", as these words had high precedence number. This also demonstrates how certain words, as dictated by the script, can be manipulated regardless of contextual considerations, such as switching first-person pronouns and second-person pronouns and vice versa, as these too had high precedence numbers. Such words with high precedence numbers are deemed superior to conversational patterns and are treated independently of contextual patterns. Following the first examination, the next step of the process is to apply an appropriate transformation rule, which includes two parts: the "decomposition rule" and the "reassembly rule". First, the input is reviewed for syntactical patterns in order to establish the minimal context necessary to respond. Using the keywords and other nearby words from the input, different disassembly rules are tested until an appropriate pattern is found. Using the script's rules, the sentence is then "dismantled" and arranged into sections of the component parts as the "decomposition rule for the highest-ranking keyword" dictates. The example that Weizenbaum gives is the input "You are very helpful", which is transformed to "I are very helpful". This is then broken into (1) empty (2) "I" (3) "are" (4) "very helpful". The decomposition rule has broken the phrase into four small segments that contain both the keywords and the information in the sentence. The decomposition rule then designates a particular reassembly rule, or set of reassembly rules, to follow when reconstructing the sentence. The reassembly rule takes the fragments of the input that the decomposition rule had created, rearranges them, and adds in programmed words to create a response. Using Weizenbaum's example previously stated, such a reassembly rule would take the fragments and apply them to the phrase "What makes

Stegomalware

Stegomalware is a form of malicious software that leverages steganography techniques to conceal its code, configuration data, or command-and-control (C&C) communications within seemingly benign digital media such as images, audio files, videos, documents, or network traffic. It typically embeds encrypted or obfuscated payloads into digital media and only extracts and executes them at runtime, which makes traditional signature-based and sandbox-based detection significantly more difficult. Stegomalware has been observed in attacks ranging from advanced persistent threats (APTs) to financially motivated cybercrime, and is now the subject of dedicated academic surveys, research projects, and international law-enforcement initiatives. The key distinction between stegomalware and traditional obfuscated malware lies in the encoding location. After obfuscation, malicious code remains present within the executable and can theoretically be discovered through static analysis. In contrast, stegomalware hides the payload entirely within a cover medium (image, audio, etc.), remaining invisible until the malware dynamically extracts and executes it at runtime. == History == The term stegomalware was formally introduced by researchers Águila, Laskov, and others in the context of mobile malware and presented at the Inscrypt (Information Security and Cryptology) conference in 2014. This marked the first academic formalization of the concept, though earlier work had already identified that botnets and mobile malware could use steganography and covert channels for command-and-control communication over probabilistically unobservable channels. Since its introduction, stegomalware has evolved from a theoretical concern to a documented threat. In 2011, the APT operation known as "Operation Shady RAT" became one of the first documented cases of stegomalware in the wild, using digital images to hide Internet Protocol addresses and command-and-control server addresses. The same year, the Duqu malware (targeting industrial manufacturers) embedded victim data into JPEG image files before exfiltration, making the data transfer virtually undetectable to network-level security tools. From 2014 onwards, stegomalware became more prevalent in organized cybercrime and advanced persistent threat campaigns. Notable examples include Zeus/Zbot, which masked configuration data in images; Gatak/Stegoloader, which hid shellcode in PNG files; TeslaCrypt, which embedded C&C commands in JPEGs; and Cerber, which concealed ransomware payloads within images. By the 2010s, stegomalware had become established as a preferred evasion technique for espionage, financial theft, and ransomware distribution campaigns. Recent surveys (2020–2025) document that stegomalware has increasingly been exploited by adversaries targeting banks, enterprises, government agencies, educational institutions, and internet users via malvertising campaigns. The technique is now considered a sophisticated method of attack worthy of dedicated international law-enforcement attention. == Technical Characteristics and Definitions == Stegomalware operates through a three-component architecture: Stegotext (R): An innocent-looking digital asset (image, audio file, etc.) into which the malicious payload is embedded. Secret key (sk): A key used by the embedding and extraction algorithms, typically hardcoded into the malware. Payload (p): The actual malicious code, configuration data, or C&C commands hidden within the stegotext. The malware extracts the payload at runtime using the secret key and either executes it directly or uses it to download additional stages of the attack. Stegomalware can be classified into several types based on deployment method: Type 0 (Autonomous): Both the stegotext and extraction algorithm are embedded within the malware application itself. The malicious payload is extracted and executed locally without external communication. Type I (Update): The stegotext and secret key are downloaded from a remote server at runtime; only the extraction algorithm is included in the malware. This variant is more flexible, allowing attackers to push updated payloads. Type II (External Algorithm): Neither the stegotext nor the extraction algorithm are distributed with the malware; both are fetched from an attacker-controlled infrastructure, providing maximum flexibility and evasion. == Steganography techniques == === Spatial domain methods === Stegomalware predominantly uses steganographic methods designed for images, as images are the most common cover medium in the wild. The most basic spatial domain technique is Least Significant Bit (LSB) substitution, which replaces the least significant bits of pixel color values with payload bits. While simple and easy to implement, LSB is also relatively easy to detect through statistical analysis. More sophisticated spatial domain techniques include: HUGO (High Undetectable steGO) (2010): Minimizes detectable distortion by distributing the payload across multiple pixels, achieving embedding capacity with reduced statistical footprint. WOW (Wavelet Obtained Weights) (2012): Embeds data preferentially in textured regions of images where modifications are less perceptually noticeable. UNIWARD (Universal Wavelet Relative Distortion) (2014): Uses a universal distortion function applicable to multiple image formats, balancing payload capacity with undetectability. HILL (2014): Applies high-pass and low-pass filters to identify robust embedding regions. MiPOD (Minimizing the Power of Optimal Detector) (2016): Designed to minimize the power of theoretical optimal steganalysis detectors. === Transform domain methods === Transform domain techniques convert images into the frequency domain (e.g., using DCT or DWT) before embedding, allowing for more robust hiding in JPEG and other compressed formats: Embedding in DCT coefficients (used in JPEG compression) Embedding in DWT coefficients (used in lossless formats) Spread spectrum techniques, which distribute the payload across many frequency components Transform domain methods are generally more resistant to noise, compression, and image transformations than spatial methods. === Generative adversarial network (GAN) methods === Recent advances in machine learning have introduced GAN-based steganography, where a generative model produces stego images that minimize detectable artifacts: SGAN (Steganographic GAN) (2017): First GAN applied to steganography, using a generator, discriminator, and steganalysis network. ASDL-GAN (2017): Performs automatic steganographic distortion learning at the pixel level. SteganoGAN (2019): Improves upon earlier GAN models, achieving higher embedding capacity and robustness. HiGAN (Hiding Images GAN) (2020): Enables hiding one image within another while maintaining visual plausibility. GAN-based approaches are more resilient to standard steganalysis attacks but remain an emerging threat requiring further research. == Notable malware campaigns == Stegomalware has been documented in numerous high-profile cyber attacks and campaigns. Notable examples include: Operation Shady RAT (2011): Used digital images to hide command-and-control server addresses in targeted espionage. Duqu (2011): Embedded victim data into JPEG files to exfiltrate industrial control system information. Zeus/Zbot (2014): Masked banking configuration data inside JPEG files exploited via malvertising. Gatak/Stegoloader (2015): Hid shellcode in PNG files for software licensing attacks and bot command execution. TeslaCrypt (2015): Embedded C&C commands and ransomware keys in JPEG images. Cerber (2016): Concealed executable ransomware code in JPEG files distributed via phishing. DNSChanger (2016): Embedded malicious code in PNG files for DNS hijacking campaigns. Sundown Exploit Kit (2017): Distributed exploit code in PNG files via malvertising. AdGholas (2017): Used JPEG steganography to distribute ransomware via malvertising. Synccrypt (2017): Hidden ransomware components in JPEG-steganographic encrypted archives. ZeroT/PlugX (2017): Hid Remote Access Trojan payloads in BMP files for espionage. Loki Bot (2018): Concealed malware installers in JPEG and video files. Waterbug (APT28) (2019): Injected malicious DLLs into WAV audio files. Shlayer (macOS adware) (2019): Hid malicious URLs in JPEG files via malvertising. === Attack vectors === The most common attack vectors for stegomalware include: Phishing emails with malicious attachments or links Malvertising campaigns using malicious banner advertisements Exploit kits through compromised or malicious websites Legitimate application vulnerabilities (e.g., watering-hole attacks) Fake software distribution (cracked software, keygen tools) === Exploitation stages === Stegomalware typically serves one or more roles in attack lifecycles: Payload delivery: Stego images contain full executable code or shellcode. C&C communication: Hidden data contains server addresses or command instructio

Viral marketing

Viral marketing is a business strategy that uses existing social networks to promote a product or service on social media platforms. Its name refers to how consumers spread information about a product with other people, much in the same way that a virus spreads from one person to another. It can be delivered by word of mouth, or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet and mobile networks. The concept is often misused or misunderstood, as people apply it to any successful enough story without taking into account the word "viral". Viral advertising is personal and, while coming from an identified sponsor, it does not mean businesses pay for its distribution. Most of the well-known viral ads circulating online are ads paid by a sponsor company, launched either on their own platform (company web page or social media profile) or on social media websites such as YouTube. Consumers receive the page link from a social media network or copy the entire ad from a website and pass it along through e-mail or posting it on a blog, web page or social media profile. Viral marketing may take the form of video clips, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, text messages, email messages, or web pages. The most commonly utilized transmission vehicles for viral messages include pass-along based, incentive based, trendy based, and undercover based. However, the creative nature of viral marketing enables an "endless amount of potential forms and vehicles the messages can utilize for transmission", including mobile devices. The ultimate goal of marketers interested in creating successful viral marketing programs is to create viral messages that appeal to individuals with high social networking potential (SNP) and that have a high probability of being presented and spread by these individuals and their competitors in their communications with others in a short period. The term "viral marketing" has also been used pejoratively to refer to stealth marketing campaigns—marketing strategies that advertise a product to people without them knowing they are being marketed to. == History == The emergence of "viral marketing", as an approach to advertisement, has been tied to the popularization of the notion that ideas spread like viruses. The field that developed around this notion, memetics, peaked in popularity in the 1990s. As this then began to influence marketing gurus, it took on a life of its own in that new context. The brief career of Australian pop singer Marcus Montana is largely remembered as an early example of viral marketing. In early 1989, thousands of posters declaring "Marcus is Coming" were placed around Sydney, generating discussion and interest within the media and the community about the meaning of the mysterious advertisements. The campaign successfully made Montana's musical debut a talking point, but his subsequent music career was a failure. The term is found in PC User magazine in 1989 with a somewhat differing meaning. It was later used by Jeffrey Rayport in the 1996 Fast Company article "The Virus of Marketing", and Tim Draper and Steve Jurvetson of the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson in 1997 to describe Hotmail's practice of appending advertising to outgoing mail from their users. Doug Rushkoff, a media critic, wrote about viral marketing on the Internet in 1996. Bob Gerstley wrote about algorithms designed to identify people with high "social networking potential." Gerstley employed SNP algorithms in quantitative marketing research. In 2004, the concept of the alpha user was coined to indicate that it had now become possible to identify the focal members of any viral campaign, the "hubs" who were most influential. Alpha users could be targeted for advertising purposes most accurately in mobile phone networks, due to their personal nature. In early 2013, the first ever Viral Summit was held in Las Vegas. == Factors == Marketer Jonah Berger defines six key factors that drive virality, organized in an acronym called STEPPS: Social currency – the better something makes people look, the more likely they will be to share it Triggers – things that are "top of mind" are more likely to be "tip of the tongue" Emotion – when people care, they share Public – the easier something is to see, the more likely people are to imitate it Practical value – people share useful information to help others Stories – like a Trojan Horse, stories carry messages and ideas along for the ride. Another important factor that drives virality is the propagativity of the content, referring to the ease with which consumers can redistribute it. == Psychology == To form deeper connections with viewers and increase the chances of virality, many marketers use psychological principles. They argue that this approach is scientific and can foster an environment where the odds of gaining traction are much higher. People find psychological safety and can develop a sense of trust when more people interact with online content. For this reason, marketers work to develop media that resonates with viewers on a deeper, emotional level as this approach frequently results in higher engagement. This level of interaction serves as a sign of approval, reducing the personal risk that is subconsciously linked to associating oneself with a company or brand’s content. Professor Jonah Berger at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business affirms that marketing campaigns that trigger psychological responses linked to strong emotions tend to perform better. In particular, Berger found that positive emotions like happiness, joy, and excitement have more successful share rates than their negative counterparts. This outcome results from the human instinct to respond more positively to content with activating emotions, increasing the desire to share content, which contributes to its virality. Viral marketing utilizes the primitive feeling of frisson to increase their view and share counts. This feeling of excitement is considered powerful because of its ability to cause a physical response. From increased heart rates to full body chills, Professor Brent Coker at the University of Melbourne describes that this approach to marketing triggers a primitive response that immerses the viewer in the content on a deeper level. Researchers Juliana Fernandes from the University of Florida and Sigal Segev from the Florida International University also found that people are more inclined to share emotional campaigns over those that are heavily informational. They claim that consumers do not often care to learn about a product’s actual features and benefits. Instead, people prefer to be immersed in experience-based content that creates an emotional impact. Companies and brands can benefit from treating their content in this manner and go viral more frequently than those who do not. Social proof is another psychological phenomenon that impacts viral content. Experts in this field argue that it is a natural instinct to want to behave similarly to others because it results in positive validation. This phenomenon explains the human need to conform, so marketers focus on creating engaging content that encourages interactions and causes a snowball effect. This subconsciously influences people to like, comment, and share if they already see others doing the same. Social proof goes further by providing people with a form of social currency. When individuals interact with and share content, they become associated with the topics at hand. People naturally tend to perceive one another, and this pattern carries over to the digital world. As a result, many people tend to be vigilant about the viral marketing they engage with, since they want to be perceived positively. Companies and brands have the opportunity to develop social currency themselves by aligning with their target audiences and creating marketing campaigns that fit their interests or match their values. == Methods and metrics == According to marketing professors Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein, to make viral marketing work, three basic criteria must be met, i.e., giving the right message to the right messengers in the right environment: Messenger: Three specific types of messengers are required to ensure the transformation of an ordinary message into a viral one: market mavens, social hubs, and salespeople. Market mavens are individuals who are continuously 'on the pulse' of things (information specialists); they are usually among the first to get exposed to the message and who transmit it to their immediate social network. Social hubs are people with an exceptionally large number of social connections; they often know hundreds of different people and have the ability to serve as connectors or bridges between different subcultures. Salespeople might be needed who receive the message from the market maven, amplify it by making it more relevant and persuasive, and then transmit it to the social hub for further distr

Data security

Data security or data protection is the process of securing digital information to protect it from online threats. Data security or protection means protecting digital data, such as those in a database, from destructive forces and from the unwanted actions of unauthorized users, such as a cyberattack or a data breach. Data security protects computer hardware, software, storage devices, and the data of user devices. Data security also protects the data of organizations, companies and administrative controls. Data security guarantees the protection of individual data, such as identity documents and bank data, and protects against unauthorized access, theft and loss of individual data. Data security also protects data breaches that occurs in companies and industries. Good security measures in industries reduce the probability of data breaches, and employees can rely on the company with their data and private information to be kept secured while companies can continue to maintain a stable reputation. The CIA Triad (Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability) is what is used to practice what an information security is required to follow. Confidentiality, protects information from being accessed by unauthorized persons. Integrity, makes sure data is trustworthy; and Availability, meaning that data can be accessed by approved users when it is needed; are three goals for data security. Non-repudiation in data security definition, is a device/service that shows where the data originated from and the proof of integrity. == Technologies == === Disk encryption === Disk encryption refers to encryption technology that encrypts data on a hard disk drive. It takes data from a storage device and coverts it into an unreadable format. Disk encryption typically takes form in either software (see disk encryption software) or hardware (see disk encryption hardware) which can be used together. Disk encryption is often referred to as on-the-fly encryption (OTFE) or transparent encryption. Full disk encryption encrypts each individual sector of a disk volume. Files and user data are encrypted to hinder unauthorized users from accessing without a decryption key. A diversifier permits a plaintext of a specific disk sector to be encrypted into different ciphertexts, which does not require additional storage, such as an initialization vector (IV) or message authentication code (MAC). === Software versus hardware-based mechanisms for protecting data === Software-based security solutions encrypt the data to protect it from theft. However, a malicious program or a hacker could corrupt the data to make it unrecoverable, making the system unusable. Hardware-based security solutions prevent read and write access to data, which provides very strong protection against tampering and unauthorized access. Hardware-based security or assisted computer security offers an alternative to software-only computer security. Security tokens such as those using PKCS#11 or a mobile phone may be more secure due to the physical access required in order to be compromised. Access is enabled only when the token is connected and the correct PIN is entered (see two-factor authentication). However, dongles can be used by anyone who can gain physical access to it. Newer technologies in hardware-based security solve this problem by offering full proof of security for data. Working off hardware-based security: A hardware device allows a user to log in, log out and set different levels through manual actions. Many devices use biometric technology to prevent malicious users from logging in, logging out, and changing privilege levels. The current state of a user of the device is read by controllers in peripheral devices such as hard disks. Illegal access by a malicious user or a malicious program is interrupted based on the current state of a user by hard disk and DVD controllers making illegal access to data impossible. Hardware-based access control is more secure than the protection provided by the operating systems as operating systems are vulnerable to malicious attacks by viruses and hackers. The data on hard disks can be corrupted after malicious access is obtained. With hardware-based protection, the software cannot manipulate the user privilege levels. A hacker or a malicious program cannot gain access to secure data protected by hardware or perform unauthorized privileged operations. This assumption is broken only if the hardware itself is malicious or contains a backdoor. The hardware protects the operating system image and file system privileges from being tampered with. Therefore, a completely secure system can be created using a combination of hardware-based security and secure system administration policies. === Backups === Backup is the process of reproducing copies of essential data and storing in a separate, secured place. It is used to ensure data that is lost can be recovered from another source. Backups contains a minimum of one copy of the data that requires preservation. It is considered essential to keep a backup of any data in most industries and the process is recommended for any files of importance to a user. There are 3 types of backups; full backups, incremental backups, and differential backups. Full backups secure all data from a production system, such as a server, database, or other connected data source. It is impossible to lose all data in a full backup if a breach or corruption were to occur. Full backups require a significantly large amount of time to back up and may be time-consuming taking hours to days to complete. Incremental backups only secures changed data since last backup. While all backups are done in full backups, incremental backups only save data that is recently or frequently changed. Incremental backups require lower storage costs making it a prominent solution for growing datasets. === Data Privacy === Data privacy (or information privacy) is the right for individual's data to be secured to obstruct the use of unauthorized access. It gives individuals control over their data and how it can be shared to third parties. The U.S Privacy Protection Law (see Privacy laws of the United States) requires organizations to inform individuals of how their data is collected and when a data breach occurs. By implementing an encryption, it ensures that private data is unreadable to cybercriminals. === Data masking === Data masking of structured data is the process of obscuring (masking) specific data within a database table or cell to ensure that data security is maintained and sensitive information is not exposed to unauthorized personnel. This may include masking the data from users (for example so banking customer representatives can only see the last four digits of a customer's national identity number), developers (who need real production data to test new software releases but should not be able to see sensitive financial data), outsourcing vendors, etc. Data masking is a form of encryption, as it obscures data by modifying particular letters and numbers to keep data concealed and protected from potential hackers. The individual that has access to the code that decrypts the replaced characters are the only ones that can uncover the data. === Data erasure === Data erasure (or data deletion, data destruction) is a method of software-based overwriting that permanently clears all electronic data residing on a hard drive or other digital media to ensure that no sensitive data is lost when an asset is retired or reused. Article 17: Right to be Forgotten states that users have the right to permanently remove all of their private information from their old devices/services to give people more control over their data. Users are able to switch between devices efficiently. == Threats == === Malware === Malware (or malicious software) is designed to destroy, corrupt or gain unauthorized access to a computer for the purpose of stealing, or destroying data. Hackers who use malware typically utilize many types of malware, which includes computer virus, computer worms, ransomware, spyware and Trojan horse to create a vast system of disruption and cause easy data theft. One of the victims of the vast system of disruption includes healthcare workers, who are targeted by compromised systems by infections and then having their data attacked. === Phishing === Phishing is a type of scam that allows hackers to hoax people using psychological and social engineering (using human emotions such as their trust and fear) tactics into giving personal data through emails and messages, and install computer viruses if the individual were to click on a malicious link unknowingly. Attackers are able to create websites that are very similar to original websites, which makes it difficult to detect a fake website, causing individuals to fall for giving in information. Phishing attackers use human emotion to exploit them, such as making them feel fear, urgency, sympathy with the message

Online service provider

An online service provider (OSP) can, for example, be an Internet service provider, an email provider, a news provider (press), an entertainment provider (music, movies), a search engine, an e-commerce site, an online banking site, a health site, an official government site, social media, a wiki, or a Usenet newsgroup. In its original more limited definition, it referred only to a commercial computer communication service in which paid members could dial via a computer modem the service's private computer network and access various services and information resources such as bulletin board systems, downloadable files and programs, news articles, chat rooms, and electronic mail services. The term "online service" was also used in references to these dial-up services. The traditional dial-up online service differed from the modern Internet service provider in that they provided a large degree of content that was only accessible by those who subscribed to the online service, while ISP mostly serves to provide access to the Internet and generally provides little if any exclusive content of its own. In the U.S., the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA) portion of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act has expanded the legal definition of online service in two different ways for different portions of the law. It states in section 512(k)(1): (A) As used in subsection (a), the term "service provider" means an entity offering the transmission, routing, or providing of connections for digital online communications, between or among points specified by a user, of material of the user's choosing, without modification to the content of the material as sent or received. (B) As used in this section, other than subsection (a), the term "service provider" means a provider of online services or network access, or the operator of facilities therefore, and includes an entity described in subparagraph (A). These broad definitions make it possible for numerous web businesses to benefit from the OCILLA. == History == The first commercial online services went live in 1969. CompuServe (owned in the 1980s and 1990s by H&R Block) and The Source (for a time owned by The Reader's Digest) are considered the first major online services created to serve the market of personal computer users. Utilizing text-based interfaces and menus, these services allowed anyone with a modem and communications software to use email, chat, news, financial and stock information, bulletin boards, special interest groups (SIGs), forums and general information. Subscribers could exchange email only with other subscribers of the same service. (For a time a service called DASnet carried mail among several online services, and CompuServe, MCI Mail, and other services experimented with X.400 protocols to exchange email until the Internet rendered these outmoded.) Other text-based online services followed such as Delphi, GEnie and MCI Mail. The 1980s also saw the rise of independent Computer Bulletin Boards, or BBSes. (Online services are not BBSes. An online service may contain an electronic bulletin board, but the term "BBS" is reserved for independent dialup, microcomputer-based services that are usually single-user systems.) The commercial services used pre-existing packet-switched (X.25) data communications networks, or the services' own networks (as with CompuServe). In either case, users dialed into local access points and were connected to remote computer centers where information and services were located. As with telephone service, subscribers paid by the minute, with separate day-time and evening/weekend rates. As the use of computers that supported color and graphics, such the Atari 8-bit computers, Commodore 64, TI-99/4A, Apple II, and early IBM PC compatibles, increased, online services gradually developed framed or partially graphical information displays. Early services such as CompuServe added increasingly sophisticated graphics-based front end software to present their information, though they continued to offer text-based access for those who needed or preferred it. In 1985 Viewtron, which began as a Videotex service requiring a dedicated terminal, introduced software allowing home computer owners access. Beginning in the mid-1980s graphics based online services such as PlayNET, Prodigy, and Quantum Link (aka Q-Link) were developed. Quantum Link, which was based on Commodore-only Playnet software, later developed AppleLink Personal Edition, PC-Link (based on Tandy's DeskMate), and Promenade (for IBM), all of which (including Q-Link) were later combined as America Online. These online services presaged the web browser that would change global online life 10 years later. Before Quantum Link, Apple computer had developed its own service, called AppleLink, which was mostly a support network targeted at Apple dealers and developers. Later, Apple offered the short-lived eWorld, targeted at Mac consumers and based on the Mac version of the America Online software. Beginning in 1992, the Internet, which had previously been limited to government, academic, and corporate research settings, was opened to commercial entities. The first online service to offer Internet access was DELPHI, which had developed TCP/IP access much earlier, in connection with an environmental group that rated Internet access. The explosion of popularity of the World Wide Web in 1994 accelerated the development of the Internet as an information and communication resource for consumers and businesses. The sudden availability of low- to no-cost email and appearance of free independent web sites broke the business model that had supported the rise of the early online service industry. CompuServe, BIX, AOL, DELPHI, and Prodigy gradually added access to Internet e-mail, Usenet newsgroups, ftp, and to web sites. At the same time, they moved from usage-based billing to monthly subscriptions. Similarly, companies that paid to have AOL host their information or early online stores began to develop their own web sites, putting further stress on the economics of the online industry. Only the largest services like AOL (which later acquired CompuServe, just as CompuServe acquired The Source) were able to make the transition to the Internet-centric world. A new class of online service provider arose to provide access to the Internet, the internet service provider or ISP. Internet-only service providers like UUNET, The Pipeline, Panix, Netcom, the World, EarthLink, and MindSpring provided no content of their own, concentrating their efforts on making it easy for nontechnical users to install the various software required to "get online" before consumer operating systems came internet-enabled out of the box. In contrast to the online services' multitiered per-minute or per-hour rates, many ISPs offered flat-fee, unlimited access plans. Independent companies sprang up to offer access and packages to compete with the big networks (eg, the-wire.com, 1994 in Toronto and bway.net 1995 in New York). These providers first offered access through telephone and modem, just as did the early online services providers. By the early 2000s, these independent ISPs had largely been supplanted by high speed and broadband access through cable and phone companies, as well as wireless access. The importance of the online services industry was vital in "paving the road" for the information superhighway. When Mosaic and Netscape were released in 1994, they had a ready audience of more than 10 million people who were able to download their first web browser through an online service. Though ISPs quickly began offering software packages with setup to their customers, this brief period gave many users their first online experience. Two online services in particular, Prodigy and AOL, are often confused with the Internet, or the origins of the Internet. Prodigy's Chief Technical Officer said in 1999: "Eleven years ago, the Internet was just an intangible dream that Prodigy brought to life. Now it is a force to be reckoned with." Despite that statement, neither service provided the back bone for the Internet, nor did either start the Internet. == Online service interfaces == The first online service used a simple text-based interface in which content was largely text only and users made choices via a command prompt. This allowed just about any computer with a modem and terminal communications program the ability to access these text-based online services. CompuServe would later offer, with the advent of the Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows-based PCs, a GUI interface program for their service. This provided a very rudimentary GUI interface. CompuServe continued to offer text-only access for those needing it. Online services like Prodigy and AOL developed their online service around a GUI and thus unlike CompuServe's early GUI-based software, these online services provided a more robust GUI interface. Early GUI-base

Consumer relationship system

Consumer relationship systems (CRS) are specialized customer relationship management (CRM) software applications that are used to handle a company's dealings with its customers. Current consumer relationship systems integrate the software with telephone and call recording systems as well as with corporate systems for input and reporting. Customers can provide input from the company's website directly into the CRS. These systems are popular because they can deliver the 'voice of the consumer' that contributes to product quality improvement and that ultimately increases corporate profits. Consumer relationship systems that provide automated support as well as advanced systems may have artificial intelligence (AI) interfaces that can extract and analyse data collected, or handle basic questions and complaints. == History == The first CRS was developed in the 1980s. In 1981 Michael Wilke and Robert Thornton founded Wilke/Thornton, Inc in Columbus, Ohio, to develop new CRS software.