Name: Brandon Zakaras
The important question when discussing the human factor in cybersecurity is how much money to invest in human resources, and how much money to invest in technological resources. Cybersecurity is a very complex issue that cannot be solved by just one or the other, but rather a combination of both. With a limited budget in mind, I would attempt to focus most of my finances on paying for technological solutions, but I would have a yearly training for my employees that would be effective and concise.
Technological solutions are many times much better than human solutions, simply because
they are unbiased and much quicker in response time than a human could ever hope to be. This is why I would invest in a firewall, as well as anti-malware software that would be used in every employee’s company device. They are given set parameters, and they will be perfect almost all of the time, save for an occasional hiccup, saving time and resources to be better used elsewhere. It is in these parameters though, that computers can begin to have issues. Take a firewall for example, where it stops all traffic from coming in or out if it is not on the firewall’s approved list. This brings up a very good point though, that humans are the weak spot even in the technological solutions. This is why human solutions are important to invest in as well.
Without human solutions, technological solutions would be able to achieve almost nothing, and the same could be said for human solutions without technological solutions. They are intrinsically intertwined, so therefore human solutions must be paid for as well. While most of my money would go towards the technological side of solutions, I would make sure there was a yearly training session on correct cybersecurity procedures, culminating in an overall practice run of what to do if anything were to happen. I would also most likely hire a white-hat hacker for assurance that everything is as secure as possible.
Both of these solutions could not exist without the other in today’s world. Human solutions are very important to cybersecurity, despite even the name implying that it is mainly about electronics. Electronics are amazingly resilient and security-focused with the right tools, but all it takes is one person to open the technological “door,” and then the entire system can be compromised. Because of this, it is very important to invest in both human and technological security solutions, and to train personnel on the right way to deal with information in the corporate world.
References
● Pogrebna, G. (2020, February 14). Cybersecurity as a behavioural science: Part 1.
CyberBitsEtc. Retrieved October 16, 2021, from
https://www.cyberbitsetc.org/post/cybersecurity-as-a-behavioural-science-part-1.
● Capone, Z. T. Z. B. J., & Capone, J. (2018, May 25). The impact of human behavior on
security. CSO Online. Retrieved October 16, 2021, from
https://www.csoonline.com/article/3275930/the-impact-of-human-behavior-on-
security.html.