OPM/
Wir freuen uns sehr Nina-Birte Schirrmacher, Ph.D., University of Sydney Business School, Australia, auf Einladung von Herrn Prof. Dr. Jens Förderer im Rahmen des CDSB-Seminars begrüßen zu dürfen.
Frau Nina-Birte Schirrmacher, Ph.D., University of Sydney Business School, Australia, wird einen Vortrag zum Thema " CYBER THREAT ACTORS’ AND DEFENDERS’ BATTLE OF WITS: STRATEGIC OPACITY IN ADVERSARIAL ADAPTATION”halten.
Der Vortrag findet am Mittwoch, den 09.12., von 12:00 bis 13:30 Uhr im Raum O 142 statt.
Abstract
Cyber threat actors and defenders continually adapt to one another. Existing cybersecurity research often conceptualizes this interaction as successive attacks, detection and response, and subsequent adjustment. In these accounts, visibility is typically treated as an informational resource that defenders acquire and improve through detection systems and threat intelligence. We argue that this view overlooks a central problem of adversarial adaptation: visibility is itself contested. Threat actors configure and reconfigure infrastructure to constrain what defenders can learn and act upon, particularly when they detect investigative attention. Defenders, in turn, must assemble sufficient knowledge to intervene without disclosing progress that would enable counteradaptation.
We investigate this problem through a revelatory qualitative case study of a major botnet takedown. We develop the concept of strategic opacity to explain how adversaries shape the conditions under which opponents can act. Our analysis identifies three forms of opacity through which threat actors preserve operational infrastructure and three corresponding defender responses through which defenders progressively render that infrastructure actionable while concealing their investigative progress. We show that adversarial adaptation is not merely a cycle of attack and response; it is a continuing struggle over visibility. The study contributes by theorizing strategic opacity as a source of asymmetry in adversarial adaptation and by explaining how contests over visibility reconfigure the operational enactment of attack and defense.
Speaker Bio
Nina Schirrmacher is a Lecturer in Cybersecurity at the University of Sydney Business School. She completed her Ph.D. in Management of Information Systems at ESSEC Business School, France and Singapore. After graduating, Nina worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at the School of Computing at the National University of Singapore. Prior to joining the University of Sydney, she was an Assistant Professor at the KIN Center for Digital Innovation at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Nina has a vivid interest in researching cybercrime and cybersecurity. In addition, Nina is interested in new ways of working and organizing, such as in blockchain-enabled organizations. Her research has been published at leading IS conferences, including the International Conference on Information Systems, where her work has been awarded runner-up of the Best Kauffman Paper Award and nominated for the Best Theory Development Paper award.
Nina regularly serves as the Track Chair for the Cybersecurity Tracks at ECIS and PACIS 2027. She also regularly serves as Associate Editor for various IS conferences, and has received Best Associate Editor at major conferences, such as ECIS. Nina is also the treasurer of the SIG GTM that works to foster a community around theory-building qualitative research approaches.