Explain how the principles of science relate to cybersecurity.

The principals of science are relativism, objectivity, parsimony, empiricism, determinism, and ethical neutrality. The study of cybersecurity as a social science can be analyzed using these principles to help understand the determine cyber behavior.  

Relativism is a concept that in summary means all things are related. With this view we can assume that a change in technology and cyber activity can impact other aspects of life. For example, a technological glitch in a banking companies’ app can lead to an impact on a person’s financial abilities. This concept is important when determining punishments for cybercrime depending on how many other aspects of life are affected.  

 Objectivity is being able to look at facts through an unbiased lens. Point of view and interpretation cannot exist while remaining objective. For example, when determining if/when sex offenders’ digital presence should be monitored or tracked, allowing ourselves to separate from our individual opinions on the type of crime must remain irrelevant. Simply because one person believes that in committing these crimes one forfeits their right to privacy for life does not mean that removing their privacy is the correct course of action. 

Parsimony is simply keeping explanations as simple as possible. Take for example if a person is cutting vegetables with a knife and gets cut, the simplest explanation of how they were cut is the knife is sharp. This principle is difficult to apply to any social science due to the complexity of human nature. However, the simplest explanation to why one might hack into a school’s grading system would be to obtain and/or alter the data imputed.  

Empiricism is the principle that only behavior that can be felt with our senses is studied. This helps filter out opinions and hunches remain focused on the facts that come from what we can see, hear, taste, see, or touch. Applied to cybersecurity, we can have a hunch that someone is monitoring our digital life but without empirical evidence, such as finding malware, the hunch should carry no weight.  

Determinism is that behavior is caused, influenced, or determined by preceding events. Someone who tries cake and enjoys it is likely to indulge in cake again. For cybersecurity, this means if an individual attempts to hack into a company it can be assumed that that will not be their only attempt.  

Ethical neutrality, much like objectivity, requires unjudgmental and unbiased practices. A doctor may not agree with patients’ sexual choices but due to ethical neutrality they must render the same respect and care for those patients whose sexual choices align with the doctor’s beliefs. To apply this to cybersecurity this could mean having the same protections for/from female clients as they do for the males.