A Quantitative Study: Using the Latin Square Design Model in the Prioritization of Network Security Threats

Cyber attackers continue to attack organizational computer networks, as those same computer
networks become increasing critical to organizational business process.
Strategic planning and managing IT security risks play an important role in the business and
government planning process. This quantitative study explores whether the Latin Square Design
(LSD) model can be effectively applied to the prioritization of cybersecurity threats and to the linking of
information assurance defense in-depth measures to those threats. The methods used in this study
consisted of scanning 10 Cybersecurity Websites such as the Department of Homeland Security US
CERT (United States-Computer Emergency Readiness Team) and the SANS Institute (SysAdmin,
Audit, Network and Security) using the Likert Scale Model for the Website’s top ten list of cyber
threats facing organizations and the network defense in depth measures to fight those threats. A
comparison of each cybersecurity threats was then made using LSD to determine whether the Likert
scale and the LSD model could be effectively applied to prioritize information assurance measures to
protect organizational computing devices. The findings of the research reject the H0 null hypothesis
that LSD does not affect the relationship between the ranking of 10 Cybersecurity websites top ten
cybersecurity threats dependent variables and the independent variables of defense in depth
measures used in protecting organizational devices against cyber-attacks.