Use of Risk Analysis in Computer-Aided Persuasion: Threats to the security of defense systems, computer networks, and financial systems by terrorists, fraudsters, and saboteurs are an ever increasing danger. They are posing new challenges that require concerted action from researchers for developing new technologies for confronting these tactics. Security threats in recent times have also taken novel forms, for example attacks on computer networks, or attacks on the financial system network (through hacking or through a computer virus), with the aim being to cripple or paralyze these systems. This calls for protective action that identifies weak points in the system, manages and minimizes the risk involved. A resilient financial system should withstand the collapse of a financial institution (due to economic or malicious activity) with minor side effects or reverberations. In addition, terrorists attempt to use these same venues to further their activities, whether using the internet for recruiting or for messaging purposes, or using the financial system for funding their activities. Defensive strategies on computer networks call for successful designs to withstand deliberate attacks by intelligent agents. Designing computer networks that are resilient to attacks consists of building capacities in the network that allow for quick and automatic recovery with little or no interruption or loss.

As part of the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme, the NATO Workshop on the subject of Use of Risk Analysis in Computer-Aided Persuasion was held during May 24-26, 2011 in Antalya, Turkey. The goal has been to further the scientific knowledge about ways to detect, counter, and protect against intelligent threats that target computer networks, financial systems, and defense and economic entities. This book is a compilation of the papers that are presented in this workshop.

The book's papers fall into three major categories. The first group of papers considers fraud and financial systems. Topics such as fraud in insurance claims, and in credit cards are considered, and effective approaches based on genetic algorithms, neural networks, and social network analytics are developed. Approaches for the prevention of money laundering and the mitigation of credit risk are presented. This category also analyzed topics, such as how the interconnectivity of financial institutions influences the depth of defaults, how cross-holdings affect shareholder networks, and how fraud and manipulation in financial trading can lead to market collapse. The second category of papers considered threats to security and economic entities. It considered topics such as the use of immune-system inspired approaches, the use of submarine swarms, the use of text mining, and the use of combined intelligence/surveillance methods to counter and protect threats from terrorists and adversaries. New techniques based on fuzzy systems, Bayesian networks, belief theory, and risk hedging are proposed to handle threats and risks to major economic entities. The third and last category of papers considers computer network, IT, and software threats. Effective approaches based on information theory are proposed for the protection against computer network intrusion. Neural networks and decision trees are developed for software fault detection. Proactive procedures to avoid or mitigate crippling downtime risks, and to protect electronic voting systems are also proposed.

Overall, the workshop covered many diverse topics related to intelligent threats. We hope this workshop will be one contribution (among many performed by other researchers) that will make our world safer and our protection investments more cost-effective.

All talks are videotaped and posted on the workshop website (www.dogus.edu.tr/NatoARW-Risk).

The workshop co-directors are Ekrem Duman (Dogus University, Turkey) and Mohamed Naceur Azaiez (Tunis Business School, Tunisia), and the workshop organizers are Bart Baesens (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium) and Amir Atiya (Veros Systems, USA). We would like to acknowledge the great help of Yeliz Ekinci (Dogus University, Turkey) and Yusuf Sahin (Marmara University, Turkey) , whose help in the organization of the workshop was immense, and led to its success.

Ekrem Duman (Dogus University, Turkey)

Amir Atiya (Veros Systems, USA)