Science is a systematic process using organized knowledge in any field to study any
area of interest. In the case of cybersecurity, threats are everywhere and
organizations, groups, as well as people, must find innovative ways to counter these
threats. Cybersecurity is considered a multidisciplinary field encompassing many
subjects such as sociology, political science, and psychology, just to name a few.
Cybercriminals each have different motives for attacking a system and, the field of
social cybersecurity attempts to learn about the motives of these attacks, and how
perpetrators deceive their victims in giving out sensitive information to the wrong
people. In the case of ransomware, the user’s data is encrypted until the victim
pays a ransom to the hacker to unlock the data. If no payment is remitted to the
hacker within a certain amount of time, the amount of money needed to be paid
increases. Eventually, the data will be destroyed by ransomware. Consequently, the
victim must quickly make a choice between saving personal data by paying the
ransom, or risk losing all personal data, which is catastrophic. Furthermore, the use
of technology, as well as manipulating people through various psychological means
is a major area to be studied by social cybersecurity experts. With regards to social
media technology, it can be used to influence people maliciously, as well as develop
social groups or bring certain groups down. Regarding science, observations about a
threat’s behavior must be made. Next, a hypothesis is determined to learn what
cybersecurity countermeasures will work against a threat. Experiments will be
performed to see if the hypothesis of the chosen solutions effectively mitigate the
threat. After the experiment, data on what solutions are effective against the threat
are recorded, and the best solutions or countermeasures will be used to mitigate
the threat. Lastly, the incident will be written up, so that in the future, cybersecurity
professionals know how to deal with that threat.