Cybersecurity Professional Career Paper: Ethical Hacker
Benjamin Cortinez
School of Cybersecurity, Old Dominion University
CYSE 201S: Cybersecurity and the Social Sciences
14 Apr 2026
Introduction: When we look at the world of cybersecurity, from the outside looking in, it seems like a clean cut case of what it is they do. These professionals are the safeguards to a gold mine of information stored on digital servers. Unbeknownst to many (including me) before this class, there is many levels and positions to the world of cybersecurity. The one that caught my attention the most is an ethical hacker (Penetration Tester). This position will be a hacker within the company that is authorized to find vulnerabilities before an outside entity is able to find the same vulnerabilities with no good intentions. With everything in modern times going digital like medical files, everything requiring a subscription that includes credit card information, the necessity for protection in the digital world is greater now than ever before and will only keep growing in the future.
Social Science Principles: When we take a look at how social science and ethical hacking are tied together, it is used in a way to predict how a security specialists will react to a simulated attack, to show how they’ll stack up against a real attack, in other words it is a type of behavioral psychology. People have different reasons for unethical hacking, it could be a deep rooted problem stemming from childhood rebellious stage that was never grown out of, it could be to gain financial status that one thought was never achievable or something as simple as social status. Whereas ethical hackers are doing the same thing but just for the opposite reasons. While taking a deeper look this section lets take a look at the most dreaded (in my opinion) step of security, 2 step verification. As much good as I know it is to be used for I am also aware that people will willingly find a workaround of the 2 step verification that will unknowingly cause multiple security breaches.
Application of Key Concepts: When we look at risk assessments as students we are understanding that something simple as a software bug after an update isn’t just a stroke of “luck” but possibly how a organization or application shows that there is a possible weakness that can be targeted. Although ethical hackers might be tempted to backdoor these “bugs” for personal gain, often times they do not just as a nurse or doctor do not violate the HIPAA laws, which ties into the concept of privacy ethics. Something as simple as privacy ethics can test the strongest individuals when it comes to the possible personal gain vs their ethics when everything is at the tip of their fingers.
Marginalization: The impact of cybersecurity in a marginalized group is, to me, a weird topic. By definition a marginalized group is one that is underserved and often times excluded in society due to education, wealth or political reasons. Since they are underserved, which often means less security or knowledge, this group is like fish in a barrel to attackers. They are often seen as the most vulnerable due to limited access to proper security.
Career Connection to Society: If we take a quick look at ethical hackers, I do not believe that it would be to far fetched to compare them to doctors or scientists. In the sense that both previously mentioned careers are either looking for the weakness in the immune system or attempting to strengthen the immune system by finding a weakness in the immune system. Ethical hackers are doing the same thing but instead of a living organism, they are doing the same exact thing on a virtual machine. Both are fighting viruses but an ethical hacker must stop said virus before more than just one person is affected, and to ensure millions or billions of dollars are not effected. (I understand health care workers are also attempting to ensure that the virus does not spread to multiple people, I just couldn’t find a way to put my thoughts into actual words. I love healthcare workers.)