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:

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

Malicious Code Discussion

The human body is a makeup of molecules that carry information called DNA. DNA simply includes a strand of hair, blood, bodily secretions, fingerprints and more. Being an avid subscriber to forensic shows, I have grown to understand that DNA testing has significantly evolved. And also stated in the article, “Malicious Code Written Into DNA Infects The Computer That Reads It,” biologist are able to input DNA into computers by using binary numbers that coincide with the four bases of DNA.

Just like any other software, DNA software can contain vulnerabilities and bugs that make them vulnerable to different threats. As stated in the article, with the unpredictable length of a DNA sequence, additional instructions can lead to a buffer overload attack, allowing the excess information to pursue a hidden agenda.

With this potential risk, virtual machines and containers, are almost always necessary, acting as a metal box ensuring that nothing gets in or that nothing escapes. Virtual machines and container’s goal is to ensure that malicious code cannot affect the host computer and that the vulnerabilities are minimized within a boundary providing necessary isolation. The isolation strategy ensure that the DNA sequence can be properly read without information being stolen, misused or vulnerabilities being exploited.

With these bio-cybersecurity risk on the up rise, I can’t help but imagine that in the future organized crimes can later include inputting malicious codes in the DNA of criminals if a piece of DNA is accidentally or purposely left at a crime scene. Though DNA testing has evolved drastically, this maybe a concern of forensics in the future. It will be in the best interest of a company to ensure that virtual machines and containers are established to prevent an exploitation of vulnerabilities.

Cybersecurity and Criminal Justice

One of the biggest ways cyberspace has changed crime is by making traditional law enforcement methods less effective. Crimes like fraud, identity theft, and even terrorism are no longer limited by physical location because offenders can act anonymously from anywhere in the world. That makes it much harder for investigators to identify suspects, collect evidence, and even determine which agency or country has jurisdiction. A good example is financial fraud. Traditional fraud cases usually involved physical paperwork, local victims, and easier access to the person responsible. Now, online fraud can involve fake websites, stolen identities, cryptocurrency transactions, and offenders operating internationally, which makes prosecution much more difficult because law enforcement has to work across multiple legal systems and digital platforms (Oesteraas).

I think one reason criminal justice research has been slow to fully include cybersecurity is because the field has traditionally focused more on street crime, policing, and physical victimization rather than technology-based crime. Many criminal justice scholars also come from social science backgrounds and may lack strong technical knowledge of cybersecurity, creating a gap between what happens in the real world and what is studied in research. That is why a course like “Insider Threat” is important because it connects both areas. It looks at human behavior like trust, workplace conflict, and criminal intent, while also requiring knowledge of system access, security controls, and network monitoring. In my opinion, the criminal justice system needs both specialized cyber units and retraining for traditional roles. Every officer should have a basic understanding of digital evidence because almost every crime today has some digital connection. However, specialized cyber units are still necessary for more advanced investigations and large-scale cybercrime cases.