Career Paper

Amgad Bin shahbain

Social Science in Cybersecurity: The Role of a Security Awareness Specialist

11/24/2024

Introduction

The cybersecurity field plays an important role in making sure the sensitive information and ensuring the organizations are protected against any cyberattacks. While the expertise in these fields is very important, also the human element can be equal to this vital. From all these cybersecurity careers, there is an important role that stands out, which is security awareness specialist, and its main focus is to spread the right behavior and make sure that the culture of cybersecurity is well known within organizations. This role strongly depends on principles that come from the social science disciplines such as psychology, sociology, and communication. By understanding these perinciples, the specialists create a strategy that can protect the individuals within the organ to empower there knowledge about such threats and reduce security risks. This study will aim to understand the social science and principles research and also focus on the marginalized groups in our society

Role of Social Science in Cybersecurity.

This role is the foundation for understanding human behavior, which can be the main engine of cybersecurity. The awareness specialists use this science to draw on the principles that come from behavioral psychology, like starting confining and cognitive biases, and it may effect the employee actions. For example, making a bounty to anyone who ever reports suspicious phishing emails and also encouraging employees to use safe behaviors. Additionally, sociology is playing an important role in creating fully secure programs. The specialists analyze to find any barriers that marginalized employees may face, such as non-native speakers or those with limited literacy. This can be solved by bringing multilingual training and visual ads.

Daily Routines and Social Science Application

The everyday responsibilities of the security awareness specialist rotate around educating employees, measuring risks, and improving the way of thinking about proactive security. The main point is including defining training programs for all employees, such as phishing simulations and workshops. These actions often depend on adult learning theories such as Malcolm Knowles’ andragogy, which highlights how to lead learning and the direct importance of the learner’s job role (CyberconIQ, 2022). Furthermore, another important task that, as spicaliests, is data-driven analysis of the employess in the organization behavior. For example, this data, such as how many times those phishing click rates or survey responses are used to find the weakness and change the training approaches. By regular ratings, it will help know progress that these trainings have made and enhance secure online habits.

Conclusion

The role of a security awareness specialist spells out the relationship between social science and cybersecurity. By using the principles from psychology, sociology, and communication, the specialist professionals can address the human factors to stop the scurity weakness within the organization. The work they have is not only to implement training and enhance organizational resilience but also to give everyone promotion and equity in cybersecurity policies. While these threats are becoming more risks in this digital age, research in social science will stay important to address the challenges and improve the organizations protection from such risks. This job role in cybersecurity highlights the importance of understanding human behavior and trying to create better environments within the organizations for a more secure digital future.

Reference 

CyberconIQ. (2022). Behavioral Psychology Training Reduces Cybersecurity Risks. Retrieved from cyberconiq.com.

Tripwire Blog. (2023). How Behavioral Science Principles Improve Cybersecurity. Retrieved from tripwire.com.

IT Governance Blog. (2023). Building a Security-Aware Culture. Retrieved from itgovernance.co.uk.