IT/CYSE 200T

Cybersecurity, Technology, and Society

Students in IT/CYSE 200T will explore how technology is related to cybersecurity from an interdisciplinary orientation.  Attention is given to the way that technologically-driven cybersecurity issues are connected to cultural, political, legal, ethical, and business domains. The learning outcomes for this course are as follows:

  1. Describe how cyber technology creates opportunities for criminal behavior,
  2. Identify how cultural beliefs interact with technology to impact cybersecurity strategies,
  3. Understand and describe how the components, mechanisms, and functions of cyber systems produce security concerns,
  4. Discuss the impact that cyber technology has on individuals’ experiences with crime and victimization,
  5. Understand and describe ethical dilemmas, both intended and unintended, that cybersecurity efforts, produce for individuals, nations, societies, and the environment,
  6. Describe the costs and benefits of producing secure cyber technologies,
  7. Understand and describe the global nature of cybersecurity and the way that cybersecurity efforts have produced and inhibited global changes,
  8. Describe the role of cybersecurity in defining definitions of appropriate an inappropriate behavior,
  9. Describe how cybersecurity produces ideas of progress and modernism.

Course Material

Going on a Job Hunt

While reading through all the jobs listed in the article, I realized that they all require some discipline in the protection, use, and testing of the hardware they are working with. The 2 jobs that caught my eye the most were Penetration Testers and Cybercrime Investigators. The first job I want to talk about is Penetration Testers. Their job is to run authorized, simulated attacks on hardware and systems to test their functionality and dexterity. This job requires you to know what kind of attacks can be used against the technology you are working with and come up with ways to prevent hackers from gaining access. Some other skills required for this job are knowledge about weaknesses and how to make those weaknesses stronger, good communication, being able to write reports, a strong understanding of coding, a good amount of knowledge about operating systems, and an ample amount of knowledge about network and networking systems. The most interesting concept of this job is that the people being paid to do it are being paid to hack into their own system and find the weak links. The article calls penetration testers “ethical hackers” (https://www.cyberdegrees.org/jobs/penetration-tester/ Links to an external site.).

The other job I wanted to delve into is Cybercrime Investigators. This job is focused on working and solving crimes involving the cyber world. The people who hold this job require skills such as, being able to access and navigate the dark web, processing crime scenes, obtaining information from witnesses, victims, and suspects, studying data received and found that has to do with the investigation in order to gain more knowledge, and understanding what crosses the line of breaking the law and what should’ve done to correct the action. The biggest thing that surprised me reading about this job was how many skills a person is required to have. The ones I listed were the basic outline of the job, but as I looked further into the job, I realized there were, many more hard and soft skills required for being a cybercrime investigator (https://onlinedegrees.sandiego.edu/cyber-crime-investigator-career/#:~:text=Simply%20put%2C%20a%20cybercrime%20investigator,in%20place%20%E2%80%94%20and%20much%20more Links to an external site..).

Ethical Considerations of CRISPR Gene Editing

While reading about CRISPR Gene editing, it brought up some concerns about how the technology could impact humanity and how we reproduce. It’s always a good thing to the way the pros and cons of scientific developments to see if they are truly a stepping stone for humanity or a waste of time and effort. The CRISPR gene editor is supposedly a way to perfect the genetic makeup of future babies to make them for example immune to diseases like cancer, enhance their mental and physical health, and prevent mental disorders or birth defects. While these breakthroughs sound promising, we must also consider how tinkering with our genes could affect a human throughout their life. It could make someone live a shorter life, or make them a psychopath or antisocial. It could also lead to these genetically-enhanced people being more favorable in social life and more sought after for careers. One source that helped me weigh my concerns and revolves around eugenics is the sci-fi movie “GATTACA.” The movie revolves around a dystopian society that favors those with better genes for most high-paying jobs, while those with “inferior” genes work lower-income jobs. This movie and other concerns are what need to be brought up as possible outcomes of what gene editing could do to our society and why we need to use caution when tampering with our genes.

SCADA Systems and Their Benefits

SCADA (Supervisory control and data) systems are used to monitor and maintain industrial, infrastructure, and facility-based processes. They have been used for many purposes that help make production much more efficient and effective such as controlling pipelines, power plants, airports, traffic lights, and manufacturers. They also collect data about their processing in order for any human operator to measure and adjust their systems in lieu of any possible issues or malfunctions. SCADA systems are also built to help mitigate and avert any vulnerabilities to critical infrastructure such as the dependencies of any system or application that can fail or degrade over time due to natural or human causes. However, since these systems usually require internet and so there are concerns with possible problems of outages and latency while operating. A cyber attack that isn’t intercepted could lead to a catastrophic failure of the system and it is why there are current developments of VPNs and firewalls in order to better reinforce the system’s security.

References

“SCADA Systems.” SCADA Systems, http://www.scadasystems.net/.