In case of a major cyber incident, organizations usually rely on external providers of Cyber Incident Response (CIR) services. CIR consultants operate in a dynamic and constantly changing environment in which they must actively engage in information management and problem solving while adapting to complex circumstances. In this challenging environment CIR consultants need to make critical decisions about what to advise clients that are impacted by a major cyber incident. Despite its relevance, CIR decision making is an understudied topic. The objective of this preliminary investigation is therefore to understand what decision-making strategies experienced CIR consultants use during challenging incidents and to offer suggestions for training and decision-aiding. A general understanding of operational decision making under pressure, uncertainty, and high stakes was established by reviewing the body of knowledge known as Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM). The general conclusion of NDM research is that experts usually make adequate decisions based on (fast) recognition of the situation and applying the most obvious (default) response pattern that has worked in similar situations in the past. In exceptional situations, however, this way of recognition-primed decision-making results in suboptimal decisions as experts are likely to miss conflicting cues once the situation is quickly recognized under pressure. Understanding the default response pattern and the rare occasions in which this response pattern could be ineffective is therefore key for improving and aiding cyber incident response decision making. Therefore, we interviewed six experienced CIR consultants and used the critical decision method (CDM) to learn how they made decisions under challenging conditions. The main conclusion is that the default response pattern for CIR consultants during cyber breaches is to reduce uncertainty as much as possible by gathering and investigating data and thus delay decision making about eradication until the investigation is completed. According to the respondents, this strategy usually works well and provides the most assurance that the threat actor can be completely removed from the network. However, the majority of respondents could recall at least one case in which this strategy (in hindsight) resulted in unnecessary theft of data or damage. Interestingly, this finding is strikingly different from other operational decision-making domains such as the military, police and fire service in which there is a general tendency to act rapidly instead of searching for more information. The main advice is that training and decision aiding of (novice) cyber incident responders should be aimed at the following: (a) make cyber incident responders aware of how recognition-primed decision making works; (b) discuss the default response strategy that typically works well in several scenarios; (c) explain the exception and how the exception can be recognized; (d) provide alternative response strategies that work better in exceptional situations.
Ethnographic fieldwork is a balancing act between distancing and immersing. Fieldworkers need to come close to meaningfully grasp the sense-making efforts of the researched. In methodological textbooks on ethnography, immersion tends to be emphasized at the expense of its counterpart. In fact, ‘distancing’ is often ignored as a central tenet of good ethnographic conduct. In this article we redirect attention away from familiarization and towards ‘defamiliarization’ by suggesting six estrangement strategies (three theoretical and three methodological) that allow the researcher to develop a more detached viewpoint from which to interpret data. We demonstrate the workings of these strategies by giving illustrations from Machteld de Jong’s field- and text-work, conducted among Moroccan-Dutch students in an institution of higher vocational education.
Based on the results of two research projects from the Netherlands, this paper explores how street oriented persons adapt and use digital technologies by focusing on the changing commission of instrumental, economically motivated, street crime. Our findings show how social media are used by street offenders to facilitate or improve parts of the crime script of already existing criminal activities but also how street offenders are engaging in criminal activities not typically associated with the street, like phishing and fraud. Taken together, this paper documents how technology has permeated street life and contributed to the ‘hybridization’ of street offending in the Netherlands—i.e. offending that takes place in person and online, often at the same time.
