Cybersecurity and the Social Sciences
Cybersecurity is typically conceived as a technical topic. In reality, the topic is multi-disciplinary, and some aspects of the topic are best understood through a social science lens. This course addresses the social, political, legal, criminological, and economic dimensions of cybersecurity through a social science framework. Students are introduced to a human-factors approach to understanding cybersecurity threats. Attention is given to the social factors that contribute to cyber incidents and the political and legal mechanisms that are developed to control the behaviors of those who create risks and cybersecurity incidents. The class also explores how cybersecurity is studied by social scientists in various social science disciplines.
The course objectives for this class are to:
- Compare how basic psychological, sociological, criminological, political, economic, and legal theories and models explain cybersecurity
- Identify the strengths and weaknesses of those theories in understanding the connections between human behaviors and cybersecurity
- Define key concepts including cybersecurity, cybercrime, cyber criminology, cyber law, digital forensics, human factors, cyber policy, cyber risk, cyber threats, and cyberwar.
- Identify how professionals in various cybersecurity careers apply these multidisciplinary concepts in their daily routines
- Describe how hypotheses and research questions are formed in studies addressing cybersecurity through a social science lens
- Describe how data are collected, measured, and analyzed in studies addressing cybersecurity through a social science lens
- Identify how marginalized groups have confronted challenges and concerns related to cybersecurity as well as how these groups have contributed to our understanding about the topic.
- Explain how the application of social science theories, principles, and research strategies have contributed to our understanding of cybersecurity at the societal level.
Using the above course objectives we were given a culminating assignment to select a type of cybersecurity career and write a paper describing how professionals in that career require and depend on social science research and the social science principles they use. Below is my paper on a career in Digital Forensics:
Career-Paper-Digital-Forensics-CYSE-201S-Fall-2022