Software and TearKyle SkidmoreAkira Wickes

Ryan LindholmJoshua HowellLucas Schafer

Zaymeen Deen

LIS 3201 Research and Data Analysis

Introduction

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Research Problem, Significance, & Purpose

● Small companies face their fair share of technical issues. Mainly, we want to focus on software integration and data security issues, as well as what can be done to find solutions.

● “The tendency for small businesses to rely on outdated or illegallydownloaded software can lead to many holes in their business's information security” (Keller, 2005)

● This is the reason we must research these issues: to pinpoint main software and data security faults, and to help small companies triumph them.

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Research Questions

Q1) What are the main issues with software integration in small businesses?

Q2) How do small businesses suffer from practicing poor data security?

Q3) How can software and security issues be improved within small businesses?

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Methods

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Data Collection

We conducted surveys and interviews at small businesses we currently work for

Convenience strategy for recruitment process

Interviewed managers and bosses of companies we have worked for

Only way to conduct interview regarding sensitive information

Decided mixed methods of survey and interviews would facilitate the process and offer greater insight by gathering the opinions of regular employees (survey) and employees of a management position (interviews)

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Research Instrument Development● Survey: Questions were more general

and direct. Used to gather the thoughts of company employees regarding their software use and thoughts on their company’s software integration and data security.

● Interview: Questions were more specific in order to get in-depth information. Used to gather insight from employees with power (manager, boss, etc.)

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Population, Sample, & Sampling Techniques

● Population: Small business employees in Florida

● Sample: Employees of all levels throughout small businesses we are associated with.

● Sampling Techniques (Non-random):○ Convenience Sampling

■ We were able to conduct interviews and surveys regarding such sensitive information by choosing small companies that we already work for and have trusted relationships

○ Snowball Sampling■ After we got a handful of

employees to complete the survey, we asked them to spread the word to their co-workers

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Data Collection ProcessInterviews: Made appointments for

interviews over the phone

Interviews were mainly conducted in person, while a few had to be completed over a phone call (timing/schedule clashes)

● Survey: Strictly online through qualtrics.

○ We asked employees to complete the survey online and shared the link through text or email

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Findings/Results

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Findings/Results (Cont’d.)Figure 1.

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Figure 2.

15 Participants

80%

20%

Findings/Results (Cont’d.): RQ1Q1) What are the main issues with software

integration in small businesses?Employees are usually not informed that there

is an update for software or new software being integrated

Leads to loss of revenueGlitching and crashingSoftware chosen cannot smoothly handle

necessary tasks

Figure 3.

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Findings/Results (Cont’d.): RQ 2

Q2) How do small businesses suffer from practicing poor data security?Security breachesPhishing attacksIdentity theft

Most attacks experienced are minor and not too detrimentalHinders customer’s opinion/loyalty

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Findings/Results (Cont’d.): RQ 3Q3) How can software and security issues be improved within small businesses?

Businesses must orate new software and updates to all their employeesReinforce software and security protocol through emails and meetings

“I sat down with employees to discuss risky behavior after some monitoring of the network, but after the sit down I don’t think we’ve experienced any further issues”

Take time to analyze your company's needs in order to accurately choose software that can handle such tasks

Address and take security breaches as learning experiences to prevent future issues“Last year we got attacked by some version of the Crypto malware and as a

result we now have backups taken daily that prevent such an attack from doing damage like it did before”

Backup all data on a regular/daily basis!Improve data security practices (antivirus software, encryption, etc.)

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Findings/Results (Cont’d.): RQ 3

Figure 4. Figure 5.

Q3) Although employees are only slightly to moderately knowledgeable on software security, they all agree that it is very to extremely important, and agree small businesses should improve their data security practices.

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Implications - RQ1Biggest issue with software is functionality

Software doesn’t function as the small business expects it to.

According to Kara & Cheikhrouhou (2014) it isbecoming more difficult to pick the most proficient software for their rapidly growing

needs.We found from the interviews that small

businesses encounter software glitches and crashes because of the software they chose to execute the needed tasks

Just as big businesses encounter many software issues, small businesses do as well.

Problems include finding the right software and software integration issues

Main implications of these software issues:

Software freezing

Software crashing

Having to restart the software

Various glitches with the software15

Implications - RQ2(cont.)

From researched gathered by Hahn and Layne-Farrar (2006), they found that businesses that have cheap and poor security software are at a huge risk for having data breaches.

In our interviews, we found that some businesses use cheap security software and are open to the same issues and experience minor data breaches.

Companies knew that they had security features but they weren’t exactly sure of how secure their devices were. They only took security precautions for their computers but not any other devices.

Other devices that small businesses use could be open to attack when they don’t care about security precautions for devices other than computers.

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Limitations

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Limitations (Cont’d.)1. Small businesses

Only used small businesses in the Tallahassee area

Small businesses that we work or have previously worked at

2. Interviewing small business personnel

Making the right time that works for the interviewer and interviewee

The interviewee completely understands the purpose of the study

Many questions were asked; difficulty understanding

Locating the proper personnel in the small business who could answer the questions in the most accurate and precise manner

3. Sample Size/Sampling Technique

We used a small sample size

Bigger sample size → More accurate results

Convenient non-random sampling

SRS was not feasible; could not give every small business an equal chance of being chosen

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Conclusion

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Conclusion - RQ1, RQ2, RQ3● Companies stay up to date with software

security● Security issues are only addressed a few

times a year● All businesses have suffered a security

attack, but most are not very detrimental● Few businesses send mass emails or hold

meetings to ensure employees follow proper security protocol

● Interview:○ Companies do not orate software

updates and requirements as well as they should - leads to revenue loss

● Recurring Technical Problems:○ Software freezing/crashing○ Device has to be restarted○ Glitches in software○ Relaxed data security

● Solutions:○ Orate & enforce updates to employees○ Analyze business needs to properly

choose software○ Backup all data on a regular/daily

basis!○ Improve data security practices

(antivirus software, encryption, etc.)20

Reflection on Conducting Research- Challenges

- Tracking down experts and finding times to interview them on their schedules.

- Condensing the research from 6 group members with very different schedules.

- Trouble finding willing participants to take our survey.

- Oftentimes our questions involved companies’ weaknesses in some of their software implementation practices and experts were somewhat unwilling to discuss it.

- Oftentimes our questions were directed at the weak points in a company’s security and experts were extremely unwilling to discuss these points.

- Lessons

- Getting the PR’s done early in the week while we were in class or all together was extremely beneficial as it limited communication issues resulting from busy schedules.

- The key to securing interviews and survey candidates was to be extremely active in asking candidates.

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