Teaching Information Security Management in Postgraduate Tertiary Education: The Case of Horizon Automotive Industries

TL;DR

This paper presents a real-world case study of Horizon Automotive Industries to teach postgraduate students about information security management principles through storytelling and critical discussion.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed case study approach for teaching ISM concepts, integrating real organizational challenges to enhance pedagogical effectiveness.

Findings

Students engage in critical analysis of security strategies.

The case fosters discussion on risk management and policy development.

Enhanced understanding of real-world security issues among students.

Abstract

Teaching cases based on stories about real organizations are a powerful means of storytelling. These cases closely parallel real-world situations and can deliver on pedagogical objectives as writers can use their creative license to craft a storyline that better focuses on the specific principles, concepts, and challenges they want to address in their teaching. The method instigates critical discussion, draws out relevant experiences from students, encourages questioning of accepted practices, and creates dialogue between theory and practice. We present Horizon, a case study of a firm that suffers a catastrophic incident of Intellectual Property (IP) theft. The case study was developed to teach information security management (ISM) principles in key areas such as strategy, risk, policy and training to postgraduate Information Systems and Information Technology students at the University of Melbourne, Australia.