# A Brief History and Overview of WISE

Lynette Drevin, Wai Sze Leung, Natalia Miloslavskaya, Suné Von Solms

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Lynette Drevin, Wai Sze Leung, Natalia Miloslavskaya, Suné Von Solms. A Brief History and Overview of WISE. 14th IFIP World Conference on Information Security Education (WISE), Jun 2021, Virtual, United States. pp.3-9, 10.1007/978-3-030-80865-5_1 . hal-03739157

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A Brief History and Overview of WISE

The World Conference on Information Security Education (WISE) has a long history, with the first official event taking place in 1999 in Sweden, hosted by IFIP WG 11.8. However, even before this, information security education had been under discussion at IFIP SEC. Prior to 1995 several IFIP SEC tracks included a focus on education. Then, from 1995 to 1998, four annual workshops focused on the theme "Information Security Education — Current and Future Needs, Problems and Prospects". These events led to the forming of WISE.

In the 14 events to date WISE has been held in 13 countries and on five continents. Table 1 summarises the history of WISE events from 1999 to 2021.

<table><caption>Table 1. History of WISE Events (1999–2021)</caption><thead><tr><th>No.</th><th>Year</th><th>Dates</th><th>Location</th><th>Papers</th><th>Proceedings</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td>1999</td><td>17-19 Jun</td><td>Stockholm, Sweden</td><td>21</td><td>Published by the Department of Computer & Systems Sciences, Stockholm University/Royal Institute of Technology (ISBN 91-7153-910-7)</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>2001</td><td>12-14 Jul</td><td>Perth, Australia</td><td>23</td><td>Published by the School of Computer & Information Science, Edith Cowan University (ISBN 0-7298-0498-4)</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>2003</td><td>26-28 Jun</td><td>Monterey, USA</td><td>28</td><td>https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-35694-5</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>2005</td><td>18-20 May</td><td>Moscow, Russia</td><td>36</td><td>Published by the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (ISBN 5-7262-0565-0)</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>2007</td><td>19-21 Jul</td><td>West Point, USA</td><td>19</td><td>https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-73269-5</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>2009</td><td>27-31 Jul</td><td>Bento Goncalves, Brazil</td><td>10</td><td>papers combined with WISE 8</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>2011</td><td>7-9 Jun</td><td>Lucerne, Switzerland</td><td>18</td><td>papers combined with WISE 8</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>2013</td><td>8-10 Jul</td><td>Auckland, New Zealand</td><td>34</td><td>https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39377-8</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>2015</td><td>26-28 May</td><td>Hamburg, Germany</td><td>13</td><td>https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18500-2</td></tr><tr><td>10</td><td>2017</td><td>29-31 May</td><td>Rome, Italy</td><td>14</td><td>https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58553-6</td></tr><tr><td>11</td><td>2018</td><td>18-20 Sep</td><td>Poznan, Poland</td><td>11</td><td>https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99734-6</td></tr><tr><td>12</td><td>2019</td><td>25-27 Jun</td><td>Lisbon, Portugal</td><td>12</td><td>https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23451-5</td></tr><tr><td>13</td><td>2020</td><td>21-23 Sep</td><td>Maribor, Slovenia*</td><td>13</td><td>https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59291-2</td></tr><tr><td>14</td><td>2021</td><td>22-24 Jun</td><td>Oslo, Norway*</td><td>8</td><td>In press</td></tr></tbody></table>

<footnote>*These events were held virtually</footnote>
WG 11.8: Information Security Education is a collection of international professionals from academia, military, government and the private sector dedicated to spreading knowledge, understanding, and the practice of computer security and information assurance. WG 11.8 was established in 1991 and aims to “promote information security education and training at the university level and in government and industry” <fnref n="1" />. More information can be found on the official working group website at https://www.ifiptc11.org/wg118. While topics related to information security education are now predominantly associated with WISE, the event is frequently co-located with IFIP SEC, benefiting from active participation by a broad range of security researchers.

The WISE conferences are proud of presenting and publishing high quality papers. This is ensured through a double-blind review process and publication of accepted papers in an official proceedings. The proceedings for WISE 1, 2 and 4 are inaccessible in practice as they are published as technical reports. However, starting with WISE 5 in 2007, the proceedings have been published by Springer in the series entitled *IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology*. These proceedings have an ISBN and are indexed in Scopus. The WISE proceedings published in the Springer series throughout the years present a rich history of the development and growth of the conference.

During the 14 years in which WISE has been held, a total of 231 papers have been presented by authors from the 15 countries shown in the map below (Figure 1), including the USA, UK, South Africa, Russia, Sweden, and Norway. The contribution from each country is shown in Figure 2.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1. Countries Represented by WISE Authors</figcaption></figure>

<footnote n="1">¹ https://www.ifiptc11.org/wg118-mission</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 2. Contributing Countries</figcaption></figure>

A total of 114 papers are currently available in the various proceedings pub-
lished by Springer. A content analysis based on the title, abstract, and keywords
of these papers provide some insight into WISE topic areas. The top terms are
shown in the word cloud in Figure 3. The top five terms are: Security, Informa-
tion, Education, Cybersecurity, and Computer.

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 3.** Top Terms in Published WISE Papers</figcaption></figure>
Every year the WISE conference solicits submissions under a specific theme and range of topic areas. The theme, and top terms from accepted submissions, for every WISE conference since 2007 are shown in Table 2.

<table><caption>**Table 2.** Conference Themes and Top Terms in WISE Papers (2007–2020)</caption><thead><tr><th>WISE Year No.</th><th>Theme</th><th>Top Terms (excluding 'information', 'security', and 'education')</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>5</td><td>2007 Fifth World Conference on Information Security Education</td><td>Computer, training, students, course, forensic, academic</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>2009 Combined with WISE 8</td><td>Programming, training, learning, engineering, requirements, students</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>2011 Combined with WISE 8</td><td>Computer, students, cyber, technology, curriculum, program</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>2013 Information Assurance and Security Education and Training</td><td>Cyber, technology, systems, curriculum, students, infrastructure</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>2015 Information Security Education Across the Curriculum</td><td>Cyber, training, design, secure, research, software</td></tr><tr><td>10</td><td>2017 Information Security Education for a Global Digital Society</td><td>Cybersecurity, students, network, awareness, computing, research</td></tr><tr><td>11</td><td>2018 Information Security Education — Towards a Cybersecure Society</td><td>Systems, engineering, students, design, cyber, awareness</td></tr><tr><td>12</td><td>2019 Information Security Education: Research, secure, feedback, training, systems, methods</td><td>Research, secure, feedback, training, systems, methods</td></tr><tr><td>13</td><td>2020 Information Security Education: Information Security in Action</td><td>Cybersecurity, students, cyber, problem, technical, development, learning</td></tr></tbody></table>

The top terms listed here exclude ‘information’, ‘security’, and ‘education’ to provide a more nuanced look at WISE topic areas. For example, the term ‘training’ reflects the practical, hands-on nature of many contributions, which examine the transfer of skills or activity processes. It can also be seen that issues relevant to ‘students’ is a common topic area. This often extends beyond the classroom to examinations of security curricula. A further noteworthy term is ‘cybersecurity’ which points to an expanding focus on societal issues beyond information security. Ultimately this reflects the rich and multi-disciplinary topic areas which are relevant to WISE.
As of April 2021 the total number of citations (as reported by Google Scholar), as well as the paper with the highest number of citations, for each proceedings is shown in Table 3.

<table><caption>**Table 3.** WISE Bibliometrics (2007–2020)</caption><thead><tr><th>WISE No.</th><th>Year</th><th>Proceedings Citations</th><th>Impact Factor</th><th>Highest Cited Paper</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>5</td><td>2007</td><td>165</td><td>8.68</td><td>"How to Design Computer Security Experiments" (S. Peisert & M. Bishop)</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>2009</td><td>95</td><td>9.5</td><td>"Two Case Studies in Using Chatbots for Security Training" (S. Kowalski, K. Pavlovska, & M. Goldstein)</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>2011</td><td>45</td><td>4.5</td><td>"An Approach to Visualising Information Security Knowledge" (C. Armstrong)</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>2013</td><td>70</td><td>5.83</td><td>"The Power of Hands-On Exercises in SCADA Cyber Security Education" (E. Sitnikova, E. Foo, & R. Vaughn)</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>2015</td><td>59</td><td>4.54</td><td>"Learn to Spot Phishing URLs with the Android NoPhish App" (G. Canova, M. Volkanmer, C. Bergmann, R. Borza, B. Reinheimer, S. Stockhardt, & R. Tenberg)</td></tr><tr><td>10</td><td>2017</td><td>74</td><td>5.29</td><td>"A Study into the Cybersecurity Awareness Initiatives for School Learners in South Africa and the UK" (E. Kritzinger, M. Bada, & J. Nurse)</td></tr><tr><td>11</td><td>2018</td><td>30</td><td>2.73</td><td>"A National Certification Programme for Academic Degrees in Cyber Security" (S. Furnell, Michael K, F. Piper, Chris E, Catherine H, & C. Ensor)</td></tr><tr><td>12</td><td>2019</td><td>12</td><td>1</td><td>"Identifying Information Security Risks in a Social Network Using Self-Organising Maps" (R. Serfontein, H. Kruger, & L. Drevin) & "A Short-Cycle Framework Approach to Integrating Psychometric Feedback and Data Analytics to Rapid Cyber Defense" (E. Moore, S. Fulton, R. Mancuso, T. Amador, & D. Likarish)</td></tr><tr><td>13</td><td>2020</td><td>6</td><td>0.46</td><td>"An Analysis and Evaluation of Open Source Capture the Flag Platforms as Cybersecurity e-Learning Tools" (S. Karagiannis, E. Maragkos-Belmpas, & E. Magkos)</td></tr></tbody></table>
Officer positions within WG 11.8 include chair, vice-chair, and secretary. Individuals are usually appointed to these positions for 3-year terms. Over the years, a total of 14 individuals from seven countries acted as committee members for WG 11.8, as shown in Table 4.

<table><caption>**Table 4.** IFIP WG 11.8 Officers (1991–2021)</caption><thead><tr><th>Officer</th><th>Country</th><th>Position</th><th>Year</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Harold Highland</td><td>USA</td><td>Chair</td><td>1991–1995</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Louise Yngström</td><td rowspan="3">Sweden</td><td>Vice-chair</td><td>1993–1995</td></tr><tr><td>Chair</td><td>1995–2001</td></tr><tr><td>Vice-chair</td><td>2001–2004</td></tr><tr><td>Simone Fischer-Hübner</td><td>Denmark & Sweden</td><td>Secretary</td><td>1996–2001</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Helen Armstrong</td><td rowspan="2">Australia</td><td>Vice-chair</td><td>1995–2001</td></tr><tr><td>Chair</td><td>2001–2005</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Daniel Ragsdale</td><td rowspan="2">USA</td><td>Vice-chair</td><td>2000–2005</td></tr><tr><td>Chair</td><td>2005–2008</td></tr><tr><td>Lynette Drevin</td><td>South Africa</td><td>Secretary</td><td>2001–2005</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Ronald Dodge</td><td rowspan="2">USA</td><td>Secretary</td><td>2005–2008</td></tr><tr><td>Secretary</td><td>2008–2011</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="4">Natalia Miloslavskaya</td><td rowspan="4">Russia</td><td>Chair</td><td>2011–2014</td></tr><tr><td>Vice-chair</td><td>2005–2008</td></tr><tr><td>Vice-chair</td><td>2008–2011</td></tr><tr><td>Vice-chair</td><td>2014–2017</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="4">Lynn Futcher</td><td rowspan="4">South Africa</td><td>Vice-chair</td><td>2017–2020</td></tr><tr><td>Vice-chair</td><td>2005–2008</td></tr><tr><td>Vice-chair</td><td>2008–2011</td></tr><tr><td>Secretary</td><td>2011–2014</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Colin Armstrong</td><td rowspan="2">Australia</td><td>Chair</td><td>2014–2017</td></tr><tr><td>Chair</td><td>2017–2020</td></tr><tr><td>Kara Nance</td><td>USA</td><td>Chair</td><td>2008–2011</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Matt Bishop</td><td rowspan="3">USA</td><td>Vice-chair</td><td>2011–2014</td></tr><tr><td>Secretary</td><td>2014–2017</td></tr><tr><td>Secretary</td><td>2017–2020</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Erik Moore</td><td rowspan="3">USA</td><td>Secretary</td><td>2020–</td></tr><tr><td>Vice-chair</td><td>2014–2017</td></tr><tr><td>Vice-chair</td><td>2017–2020</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Jacques Ophoff</td><td rowspan="2">UK</td><td>Chair</td><td>2020–</td></tr><tr><td>Vice-chair</td><td>2020–</td></tr></tbody></table>
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 4.** Several Participants at the WISE 12 Conference (Lisbon, Portugal)
Back row from the left: Erik Moore, Steven Furnell, Johan van Niekerk, Alexander Tolstoy, Vuyolwethlu Mdunyelwa, Audun Jøsang. Front row from the left: Matt Bishop, Natalia Miloslavskaya, Suné von Solms, Lynette Drevin, Lynn Futcher, Rudi Serfontein.</figcaption></figure>