Alexander Conrad
CYSE 201S
04/07/2024
Intro
Career Paper
Cybersecurity is the general umbrella term of a multitude of different jobs and careers
that specialize in different disciplines and ideas that are more specific than just the description of
the term. Cybersecurity as a term is to protect networks, devices, and data from any unauthorized
personnel. With the unending advancement of technology and inevitably more risks associated
with this technology, the growing number of jobs has increased and continued to increase every
year. Since Cybersecurity has so many different jobs it allows professionals of many different
disciplines to take these jobs with examples being computer science, law, and many others. In the
Cybersecurity field, almost all of them deal with social science ideas and principles, they use
them to further the development of cyber policies and law. The career I will be discussing today
is the Cyber Defense Forensics Analyst.
What is a Cyber Defense Forensic Analyst?
A Cyber Defense Forensic Analyst is a cybersecurity professional that, “analyzes digital
evidence and investigates computer security incidents to derive useful information in support of
system/network vulnerability mitigation.” (Cisa.gov). Compared to other jobs in Cybersecurity
that deal with investigations or other illegal cyber activity, Cyber Forensic Analysts investigate
previously occurred incidents to learn the motivations of who committed it, how they were able
to get in, and what the main goal was. Similar to their non cyber related counterpart, these
forensic analyst’s look at the crime that took place in order to get a better understanding of the
crime and how they can possibly find the perpetrator through the use of patterns of other events
taking place.
How a Cyber Defense Forensic Analyst requires and depends on social
science research and principles
Social science is a type of science specifically studied on society and how everyone in
society reacts or interact with one another. Anol Bhattacherjee describes social science as, “the
science of people or collections of people, such as groups, firms, societies, or economies, and
their individual or collective behaviors.” (Bhattacherjee, A. 2012). Social sciences are typically
separated into two disciplines, psychology and sociology. When studying and researching using
the social sciences it allows the researcher to interact with a subject in a different way compared
to the normal physical sciences, in the such that it focuses more on the human social aspect.
Cyber Defense Forensic Analyst do exactly that and actually requires the social sciences in order
to do their job because when analyzing previous cyberspace crime scenes, they have to learn not
so much about the tools used in the crime, but rather the cybercriminal that committed the cyber
attack. When looking at the crime for the specific purpose of why a person did the crime, they
can put it together with other information they have gathered to create a framework and can use
this framework as a basis to better protect the company and internet in general in the future.
Cybersecurity experts in this job typically use a form of cybersecurity called social cybersecurity
which has the disciplines of social sciences and cybersecurity. “Social cybersecurity uses
computational social science techniques to identify, counter, and measure (or assess), the impact
of influence campaigns, and to identify and inoculate those at risk against such
campaigns…These methods also provide scalable techniques for assessing and predicting the
impact of influence operations carried out through social media, and for securing social activity
on the internet and mitigating the effects of malicious and undue influence.” (Carley, K 2020). In
addition to these methods, they use the principles and theories of social sciences when looking
for human factors of the cybercrime. These theories include Cognitive theories, Behavioral
theories and Personality theories which are used with the principles such as relativism,
objectivity, and parsimony for example to create criminal profiling for cyber attacks that have
happened before. A Cyber Forensic Analyst uses these theories and methods in order to
successfully learn and profile the individuals that commit these cyber attacks and protect the
companies and businesses more effectively.
How a Cyber Defense Forensic Analyst relates to marginalized groups
and society in general
Cyber Defense Forensic Analyst, like most jobs within the cybersecurity field are widely
accepted by all types of groups of people all around the world. The job is in the cyber field which
takes place over the internet, making it very accepted to be able to do this job pretty much
anywhere that has an internet connection. Cyber Forensic Analyst specifically focus on the
human element of cyber attacks and in doing so can use that investigation to help other jobs in
the field, such as those who train humans about cybersecurity and how to keep themselves and
their company safe on the internet. The job provides an insight that aims to protect victims of
cyberattacks and gather evidence of the crime in order to find the perpetrator and place them
responsible of that action with the help of law enforcement all over the world.
Conclusion
Cyber Defense Analyst is a very important job in the cybersecurity field that helps to
prevent new cyber attacks from happening. Without these cyber analysts it would lead to a
significant amount of the internet being too unsafe and would make all the work of other jobs in
the field pointless. With the increase of technology that is being created it is hard to remain 100%
covered, however cyber analysts and other similar fields of experts constantly need to learn in
order to keep up with attackers. That is why it is important that Analysts are able to use social
science ideas and principles while analyzing cyber attacks in order to connect the patterns and
profile criminals and attack patterns in general.
Works Cited:
CISA Cyber Defense Forensics Analyst. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA.
(n.d.). Retrieved April 7, 2024. https://www.cisa.gov/careers/work-rolescyber-defense-forensics
analyst
Bhattacherjee, Anol, “Social Science Research: Principles, Methods, and Practices” (2012).
Textbooks Collection. 3. https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/oa_textbooks/3
Carley, K.M. Social cybersecurity: an emerging science. Comput Math Organ Theory 26, 365
381 (2020). https://doi-org.proxy.lib.odu.edu/10.1007/s10588-020-09322-9