Career Paper

One Cybersecurity role that has social aspects to it are Cybercrime analysts. Cybercrime analysts play a crucial role in the cybersecurity area, responsible for identifying, understanding, and mitigating threats. Their work requires technical expertise but also a deep understanding of human behavior, which is where social science becomes involved. Sociology provides insights into the social patterns and behaviors that influence cybercriminal activities, helping analysts protect society effectively.

Understanding human behavior is fundamental for cybercrime analysts. Sociology offers tools and theories to predict and analyze cybercriminal behavior, allowing analysts to anticipate potential threats. By examining social structures and cultural norms, analysts can identify patterns that may lead to cybercrimes. Understanding the motivations behind hacking groups can help analysts develop more targeted defense strategies. Some motives are entertainment, political, revenge, boredom, recognition,and money. Psychology also plays a factor in determining individuals’ motivation. Learning psychological factors such as psychodynamic and cognitive theories to get insight into the offender’s mind and what they might be capable of.

Cybercrime analysts utilize sociological insights to understand how these groups are targeted and affected. For example, phishing scams often exploit individuals with limited digital literacy, who are usually elderly groups like our grandpas and grandmas. When recognizing these patterns, analysts can devise strategies to protect these vulnerabilities, ensuring digital safety.

In their daily routines, cybercrime analysts engage in threat assessment, where social research methods are important. Understanding relativism and relating it towards cybercrime can give insight to the analysts into addressing threats. There are different approaches to gather and interpret data about potential threats. Case studies have shown that understanding social factors, such as economic differences and political tensions, can reveal hidden motivations for cyber attacks. This sociological perspective allows analysts to anticipate and neutralize threats more effectively.

Collaboration and communication are essential aspects of an analyst’s role, requiring strong social skills. Analysts work in teams, sharing information and strategies to combat cyber threats. They must also engage with diverse communities to gather intelligence and promote cybersecurity awareness. By employing sociological principles, analysts can navigate these interactions more effectively, creating trust.

Sociology contributes to the effectiveness of cybercrime analysts by providing a deeper understanding of the social dynamics that influence cyber threats. The integration of sociological principles into cybersecurity practices enhances threat assessment, collaboration, and communication. As cybersecurity challenges evolve, the relationship between sociology and cybersecurity will continue to be vital, driving innovations and improvements in the field.

Journal Entry #14

Watching the video about Mr. Teo and digital forensics, I was thinking how they use the theory of relativism. When he was talking about all the cases, it seemed like everything was related into connection of the answer.  Each one of his cases started off with small clues and then he went into the next step that would give them another clue and bring them closer towards the investigation. As he would get one clue it seemed like they would figure out how to relate one thing toward another and figure something knew out that was connected to the answer. It’s also good that they operate so tactical and under cover to not raise awareness to the company or people related. This helps to investigate without interruption and destruction of evidence. The less people know the better because people talk, and the word could reach the wrong crowd.

I thought it was interesting how he started off in accounting and was able to lean towards the IT side and land a job in forensics. It’s interesting how people can work there way up into a job without needing a degree or certification, just a little experience in one area can help. This is a rare case because I’ve never heard of an accounting guy getting into IT, I feel like they usually want to stay in their field, but the opportunity was good for him. This further proves that you can work your way up in the tech field without needing a degree but with the proper experience and networking, you can go anywhere with tech and enter a wide variety of different fields within the tech area.

Journal Entry #12

The author display’s eleven illegal activities that a high percent of internet users may be
doing without knowing it’s illegal. There many of these activities that I am guilty of such
as, extracting audio from YouTube, using copyrighted images, torrent services, and also
faking my identity online. It’s funny because most of these crimes were done when I
was a child and was just exploring the internet. I would never have thought these things
were illegal because there are really no consequences on the internet unless something
drastic happens. I remember back in the day when LimeWire was popular, and I would
download all my music on there to put it on my CD. Come to find out later in life, that
was totally illegal. It’s very strange how so many things are illegal but yet, there is so
much freedom to do what you want on the internet and generally people don’t get
caught all the time even when searching how to get a gun on the black market or create
a bomb.
The author goes on to talk about ways to defend yourself. He states that people should
create a strong password, use VPN, browse in incognito mode, and limit sharing
information. Me personally, the only thing I do on this list is create a good password and
always changing it. I have used a VPN once but I don’t feel it is necessary for me just
doing school work and searching general stuff. Although I don’t use these methods,
they are fairly good in protecting yourself and information. I will eventually start to use
these methods in the future.

Journal Entry #10 Part 1

The social theme that arises for me first were how she talked about the location where
the job is. She talks about how there many job openings for this job role and the pay
depends on your location. The location plays an important factor because the lifestyle
will affect you. If you don’t like the city life of New York where you are surrounded by
people, then maybe that job location won’t be good for you. Another thing is the
competition in that area. In Boston there will be high competition for the job role
because of the high-ranking colleges that are located in that area.
The second social theme that arise for me is when she talked about networking in your
area to gain experience and potential job opportunities. Networking is valuable because
it can create more job opportunities for you as well as create opportunities for more
experience on your resume. So, it is good to be social and have friends in different
areas.
The third social theme she talked about was how your resume should be good, or an
employer might not hire you based on that or not even look to view it. Employers want
to see your resume as a reflection of you and if it doesn’t fit what their vision for that
position is they will pass on you. It is good to enhance your resume with experience and
wordplay to get a good look from the employer and make them envision you with a good
look.

Journal Entry #10 Part 2

Information is one of the most valuable tools to use during war. This can be used
as a weapon during political and war times. The people depend on the media outlets for
information on news about current events going on during these times such as war or
an election. This can be used as a weapon in Cybersecurity field because there are
hackers with the ability to create bots and algorithms within the media to persuade them
to believe certain misinformation or sway them towards a political side based off of
influence. For example, all of the negative media post concerning a person running for
president can lead to influence the people to vote against him whether the information
be true or not. Even with war, if there information out on social media posted by
somebody trying to create a false narrative about a certain country doing bad things for
no reason, people will sway towards the other side even if the information was false. So,
these are dangerous times because there many tools to manipulate the mass
population of countries. This is a new tactic that can be used by enemies of a country.
They can infiltrate your people and turn them against you without even having to wage
war with you. Hackers can be hired to post certain posts for the mass media to see,
Hackers can also manipulate numbers in election processes if there is a big enough
team with inside people working together. So, Cybersecurity is much needed now than
ever because of these many factors that countries have to face.

Journal Entry #9

Out of the nine questions, I put yes to four of them. The items on the scale I think
at least 90% of people with a social media account and mobile phone would have to say
yes to one question on the scale. The world is completely connected now and we our in
a digital era. This era will change how people live and our evolution of the human race.
You also can not say that everybody is on social media and addicted to it like the
majority of the people we know. There are people who have gotten wise and have had
to go through withdrawals because of their addiction. Social media is very deceiving as
well. Many hackers take advantage of social media addiction by creating bot accounts
to try and get you to give their information. There are people who can also hack an
influencer account to manipulate their followers into giving money to a false account.
There are people who know how to regulate their social media accounts and use it
correctly without letting it get in the way of their daily life, but there are people who use
social media like it’s their entire life. Specifically, the younger crowd and older people
wanting to be somebody they are not. This can be dangerous for their mental health
and wellness when people get into a another world of influence and self-satisfaction.
We all need to be more careful with who we follow, and our trust into what we view and
are willing to believe when using social media because it has become a big wiki page
where people just tell their opinion and share it like it is facts.

Journal Entry #8

Movies and Tv-shows are the only insider into mainstream media that people get a peek
into what hackers do and what it could possibly look like in the real world. Many of our
thoughts and what we think are facts, turn out to be false in the real world. Hacking
doesn’t always happen in a couple seconds with the click of button. Hacking often takes
time and patience and the right moment. There are many movies and TV shows that do
their best to depict what is hacking accurately, but of course, this is all made for
entertainment and isn’t for documentary or educational purposes in most cases. The
most accurate movie it seems like was the matrix because one of the hackers who
reviewed all the movies said that it was pretty accurate because of the actual hack was
similar to a real-life hack and using the correct coding somewhat. I actually never
thought about what hacking is actually like until I learned about cyber security so I
assumed majority of the world thinks how I thought about hacking, which is that people
just magically know how to make hacks and that they can hack just about anybody or
anything whenever they want with their computer in their underground bunker in the
middle of nowhere. It’s possible though for majority of the hacking displays that we see
on screen because going through the YouTube videos some of the movie directors
actually seem to have gotten the hacking picture in a somewhat accurate display.

Journal Entry #6

There is a lot of misconceptions about hacking that I had before cybersecurity,
and even now probably. I think looking at lots of movies and video games you see these
crazy advanced ways to hack people using really cool advanced technology. For
example, there was a scene in a movie where they just bumped into the guy with their
device close to the other person’s phone and was basically able to have access to all
the information on the phone. The video game watch dogs have some crazy hacking
abilities that were definitely crazy where you can hack cars and pretty much anything
that was tech in the world and he had all the gear to do it on him.
It seems the matrix has the most accurate view of what hacking looks like. The
first view of James Bond was a general look into what movies make hacking look like
and a regular person like me would think yeah that looks about right. In reality, there is a
lot of code, and also time that needs to be added into factor. Hacking is not an
instantaneous thing where you can just whip out a phone and hack the guy walking in
front of you within minutes. She said it is realistic to hack a car, but it wouldn’t apply to
all cars, and it wouldn’t be so easy and fast. And there are devices that are specialized
for hacking, but it is not easy and fast to use. Overall, there are devices, and some
crazy hacking abilities out there but it takes time and lots of other processes that comes
into factor.

Journal Entry #5

The one that makes the most sense for me is money. According to the reading,
most cybercriminals spend their money into assets that have value. This helps them to
get more money and also clean the money if it is dirty. I think most hackers want money
to live a good life.
For number two I would put for entertainment. Most hackers want to test out their
abilities and test out what they can do with their intelligence. It is probably fun for them
to shutdown a whole system or hacking somebodies’ private information and that gives
them satisfaction to have the power to do so. I think a lot of hackers want to hack
because it seems fun to do and it makes them happy.
Political is number three for me. A lot of the times political hacks become popular
because either the political party is involved, or the hacker wants to control what
happens in politics. International hackers also add to fuel of this fire if they don’t like
opposing countries or want to have an advantage for their side. I pick this number three
because I believe this is where higher ups get involved and pull strings to higher
hackers to do their dirty work in politics.
I would like to put boredom. Most hackers don’t have anything else to do besides
mess with other people because that is their world, and it evolves around being a
penetrator. So, I think sometimes hackers just don’t have anything better to do than
hack people and disrupt services just because and to practice their craft. I put boredom
number four because majority of hackers are young and young people don’t have
anything better to do with their life especially in this day and age of tech.
Revenge is number 5 for me. There are lots of angry people in the world and it
would be sad day for you if you make a talented hacker angry. When emotions get
involved, ethics and morals go out the door and this person might try to ruin your life
because he wants you to feel pain and misery to feed his satisfaction. I put this number
5 for the fact that we see this quite often but not often enough to put it higher up in the
ranks.
I vote recognition for number six because there are groups of hackers who try to
make a name for themselves these days. Everybody wants to be hidden, but some
people get so cocky and good, that they want you to know it was them and build their

reputation and give them fame for being one of the infamous hackers. I put this number
six because I feel most hackers don’t want to be recognized so they can continue to be
off the grid and not targeted.
Multiple reasons. There are multiple other factors that could determine why cyber
crime happens and why the person of groups of people want to cause illegal disruptions
or personal harm to an individual. Maybe this person is just a person with a personality
disorder and likes to see people miserable or likes to cause destruction or chaos. I think
this is last because these reasons represent a small group of individuals in my opinion.

Journal Entry #4

The Physiological needs can relate to technology because I am able to order
food and drinks with the use of my phone. You also can look up recipes and learn to eat
healthy with the use of the internet and your computer. Sometimes I use technology to
play ocean sounds when I’m falling asleep at night. I also use Alexa Bluetooth for red
lights to help with my sleep. Technology can be used to order clothes and even find new
clothing on the computer devices.
The second need is safety needs. This one is very technology driven because
even now I’m studying school online on a computer for my financial security. Health
places like the hospitals use technology to take x-rays of my knee when I had issues
with my knees and they helped resolve the issue with technology. Studying on the
computer to become employed within the tech field is the main thing for me with safety
and security.
Love and belonging is the third need on the hierarchy list. Social media also
allows us to communicate with family from all over the world. The technology also
allows us align ourselves with others in discord groups where everybody likes the same
thing and you can find comfort and belonging within these groups such as sports
groups.
The fourth is self-esteem. I think this refers to posting on social media of yourself
or an accomplishment. I post to social media my gym progress or me grilling my food for
people to see me and give me likes to feed my self-esteem.
The fifth and final need is self-actualization needs which means realizing your
potential and seeking growth or experiencing peaks. This is a good one for technology
because phots and videos allow you to record yourself or goals to see your growth and
realize potential. Technology allows me to seek personal growth and by researching
ways to increase my health and wellness such as eating healthy and thinking positive
by looking at positive sayings and quotes to encourage growth and seek your inner
strengths.

Journal Entry #3

Researchers can use this many ways. First, they can look at all the data, and determine
what attacks are most popular and the least popular attacks to see what is common.
Overall, this data can bring an organization to the type of attacks and what the damage
does. We can look at how these attacks happen as well to prevent future attacks from
happening. This data is crucial into seeing how the blue team can get a step ahead of
hackers.
I think that determinism and relativity can be used for this research. You can connect
the attacks to many factors that can lead to a social study of why hackers choose to do
this specific attack and how they are doing it. You can create connections and patterns
based on the data breaches.

Journal Entry #2

Define each of the principals of science in your own words. Then, give an example of how each
of the principals relates to cybersecurity.

Determinism
This principle of science is about humans doing an action or making a decision that couldn’t
have been prevented because it was influenced by something. They had no control in making that
action or decision. This behavior can be determined by events.
An example of this could be in cyber Security you can determine what a hacker will do to spread
a virus or something and you can take a deterministic approach to try and determine what steps
he or she would make to create and spread the virus.

Relativism
All things are related to one another and a belief or certain knowledge may not be accepted by
everybody.
This can be related to cyber security because you can determine what is right and what is wrong
when looking at cyber crimes. Another example in cyber security is that everything that is related
to technology with education, crime, economy, is also connected to cyber security. We can use
that approach to understand certain crimes and behavior.

Objectivity
Objectivity in my words means that something can be understood in a different way, or you can
feel a different way about it. Objectivity can refer to viewing something without strong feelings
and looking at it from a scientific and factual perspective.
This can be used in cyber security when talking about cyber crimes and how they should be
punished. Punishments may be objective.

Parsimony
This means explaining something is simple terms without using too much fancy words or over
explaining something.
This can be related to cyber security because, using simple explanations to view why hackers
start doing crimes, you can understand the basic truth and branch out to other explanations from
there.

Skepticism

Skepticism to means questioning something that does not add up correctly. Or something seems
off, so you develop a investigation mindset.
This can be related to cyber security on a way where people need to have skepticism when
dealing with the internet because you never know who is trying to steal your information or pose
as a authority figure to take something from you.

Ethical Neutrality
When undergoing research, scientists must follow ethical procedures for their research.
Ethical neutrality means even though you are doing something in the name of science and well
being of the human nation, you must follow ethical procedures and not use private data about
human behavior without consent or study a person while he is doing sexual things with minors
on the computer.

Empiricism
The meaning of empiricism means studying human behavior that has to deal with more physical
aspects such as touch, smell, and hearing.
A cyber security example of this is physically having the data of a sexual predator for evidence
in the court. Not just a he say she say thing.

Journal Entry #1

1. Protect and Defend
2. Analyze
3. Investigate
4. Operate and maintain
5. Oversee and govern
6. Collect and operate
7. Securely provision
My top three are there because they gravitate towards what I think is
more interesting than the others. I would like to work as a blue team defender
because I want to investigate and analyze situations to solve problems. I
believe one of my skills is problem solving and troubleshooting so I would like
to be on the blue team defending and putting my skills to use there.
Investigating and analyzing sounds more fun because it’s like solving a
puzzle, where you have to connect the pieces in order to see the big picture.
These top three choices are more closely aligned to my interest in Cyber
security so far. My lower ranked choices are at the bottom because I do not
want to be a high authority in the workplace such as management. Maybe
when I get older and my experience increases, I would consider that to be an
interesting route for me. I also do not want to work with software development
because it does not interest me too much and I have no knowledge of coding
yet. Collect and operate just doesn’t sound like my cup of tea. Overall, I
wouldn’t mind working in different areas for the experience and knowledge.
Working in different areas might also open my mind up to new things that I
thought we would be terrible and end up being something in my interest.

Annotated Bibliography

Ryan, M., & Ryan, M. (2021). The Sociology of Ransomware. Ransomware Revolution: The Rise of a
Prodigious Cyber Threat, 143-152.

This dives into detail of why people use ransomware attacks in a sociological perspective to get an
understanding of why they do these things and how society has influence in this malicious code use and
the further development of this.

Di Nicola, A. (2022). Towards digital organized crime and digital sociology of organized crime. Trends in
organized crime, 1-20.

This piece of work tries to explain a great phenomenon of digital organized crime from regular organized
crime. This reading gives information on the social aspect of how these groups form and why they are
moving towards the digital world and form groups like this for crime. This a good source to give
background information on how crime is evolving in the technology world and why people are increasingly committing crimes with technology.

Kaminska, M. (2021). To retaliate or not: A matter of cyber risk perception (Doctoral dissertation,
University of Oxford).

This article gives a wide variety of topics in relation to sociology and cyber security. They implement
almost all the theories that we talked about in class that relate to cyber security and how they relate to
one another. This source is really long but contains lots of information.

Shalagina, E. V. (2020). Cyber Bullying in the Modern Media Environment: Sociological Analysis of the
Ideas of Adolescents and Teachers (Based on the Materials of Applied Sociological
Research). Communication trends in the post-literacy era: polylingualism, multimodality and
multiculturalism as prerequisites for new creativity.—Ekaterinburg, 2020, 403-414.

This article provides information on how victims become victims and also dives into why the culprit
commit cyber bullying for example and they dive deep into the causes and effects of these connections
between victim and attacker.