Ade Swinger
CYSE 201S
Professor Yalpi
April 14, 2025
Career Paper: Cybersecurity Awareness Trainer
BLUF: Cybersecurity Awareness Trainers have a very important role when it comes to educating employees and organizations about secure behaviors. By using knowledge of the social sciences and other research-based strategies, these trainers connect technical systems and human users to benefit individuals and organizations alike.
Introduction:
Cybersecurity awareness trainers do exactly what the name suggests. They are responsible for training groups to utilize secure practices, designing training programs, and assessing user responses to simulated threats. They function as educators and communicators to mesh the technical and human side of businesses that need cybersecurity to maintain efficacy of operations. By using core social science principles like skepticism, empiricism, and parsimony, these cybersecurity awareness trainers are in the position to reduce risk while also considering marginalized groups and their needs.
Social Science Principles in Cybersecurity Awareness Training
Trainers are constantly battling against the skepticism of their employees because of the misconception that knowledge of security will lead to safer behavior. Also, training strategies are built from examining real data breaches happening in the world, which is an example of empiricism (Cybrary, n.d.). Lastly, parsimony is always going to be important when training employees in cybersecurity because they may not understand all the technical jargon used in the technology space and they need to be able to easily understand topics to remain safe (Alruwaili, p.4).
Application of Class Concepts
As mentioned in class in many of the modules, human error is the biggest threat to any system’s security. Trainers make practices easy to understand and follow because of this reason. Because of the challenges in researching cybersecurity, they may try different approaches, such as field studies, to gain insights to provide the right training. They also must understand psychology to do their job effectively. Tying into psychology, cyber awareness trainers must also understand the factors that will increase the risk of cyber offense or rule infringement in the case of employees (Module 4).
Marginalization and Ethical Considerations
Cybersecurity awareness trainers will have to work with diverse groups who may have limited technological literacy, disabilities, or even language barriers. These are challenges that must be overcome through inclusive training. This means using plain language (parsimony), accommodating different learning styles, and potentially multilingual training options. This can help reduce the chances of those coming from marginalized communities from being targets of cybercrime within organizations.
Relationship to Society
In the broader scope of societal benefits from trainers, it’s akin to the importance of the devices themselves. Without those in a position of educators to ensure people are using their devices safely, the amount of cybercrime would be considerably even worse than it already is. By having these trainers, financial loss and negative impacts on individual well-being can be decreased.
Conclusion
Cybersecurity Awareness Trainers are an important part in the intersection of social science and technology by highlighting the need for ethical and evidence-based approaches to security. By focusing on helping educate people, they are in part responsible for shaping safer digital environments for everyone.
References
Alruwaili, A. (2022). A review of the impact of training on cybersecurity awareness. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications (IJACSA), 13(2). https://research.ebsco.com/c/lnv5pa/viewer/pdf/yptwookgnr
Cybrary. (n.d.). Cybersecurity awareness trainer role or specialization. Cybrary. https://www.cybrary.it/blog/cybersecurity-awareness-trainer-role-or-specialization
Module 2-5 From Class.
Tahaei, M., Vaniea, K., & Hatleback, E. (2023). Software security in practice: Knowledge and motivation. Journal of Cybersecurity, 11(1), tyaf005. https://doi.org/10.1093/cybsec/tyaf005