Dante Sasaki 

11/24/2024 

Social Engineering Specialist Career Paper 

Social Science Principles 

The social science principles are crucial for being a social engineering specialist because it looks a lot more into human psychology. The way that they can understand human psychology on a deeper level is because they study the psychological principles to truly understand how people think, feel, and react depending on the situations that they are currently in. Knowing how people work helps them with being able to create more persuasive messages so they can exploit peoples trust, curiosity, and their fear. Using these social science principles they also have a research system so they can collect more data about people’s social behaviors and trends. They collect data by using qualitative and quantitative research methods. This means that they collect data by doing surveys, interviews, and observational studies. They can see the vulnerabilities that people have during human interaction.  

Concepts From Class 

On of the concepts I would like to talk about is the values and cybersecurity from slide 4 which talks about cybersecurity groups holding different values. The values of someone in the career field of a social engineering specialist makes sure that they are trustworthy towards their companies, organizations, and their marginalized group of clients that they work with. Their main goal is to protect companies’ information and stick with their ethical practices. Another concept would include subcultures and cybersecurity. Mainly talking about the hacking subculture because cybersecurity is there to prevent hackers and other issues from getting access to systems which are there to protect innocent people. There are good hackers that have morals though and their main goal is to notify these organizations when they find a vulnerability in their systems which is what social engineering specialists do. Another concept from class is also psychology. We already know that social engineering specialists work on collecting data on the psychology of marginalized groups of people so that they can get a better understanding on how people think, and this allows them to better connect with them on a personal level. Lastly, the risk triangle also is important to cybersecurity and social engineering specialists because they understand who is allowed into some organizations systems and who is not which is why they simulate hacks to see what kind of vulnerabilities that these companies have and to spread awareness on these risks.  

Marginalized Groups And Their Challenges 

Social engineering specialists work with marginalized groups and the challenges that they face because they try to implement different types of strategies so they can support these groups of people. Some of the groups that social engineering specialists work with are survivors of human trafficking, refugees, and previously incarcerated people. They attempt to help these people because they usually face issues when they try to get a job, and they feel like they are not accepted. Some of the challenges that these individuals face is being discriminated against based on their past experiences, the legal barriers (for people with criminal records), and struggling financially to dress nicely for job interviews, get transportation, etc. Social engineering specialists attempt to help these individuals by using tax incentives for companies that hire this population of people and provide training and resources so they can succeed in their jobs.  

How It Relates To Society 

Some ways that this career relates to society because it improves security awareness, promotes ethical practices, and addresses social issues. It improves security awareness because they help organizations identify vulnerabilities in their systems which is necessary for them to protect their sensitive information. They find these vulnerabilities by simulating attacks so that they can raise their awareness on the potential threats that could be coming in. This ties in with how they promote ethical practices because since they know the vulnerabilities of these companies based on the simulated attacks that they ran they would be able to exploit them, but instead they spread awareness and benefit society instead. Lastly, they address social issues because they advocate for social practices within organizations so they can make sure that there are diverse perspectives for what is considered in their security strategies.  

Conclusion 

In conclusion, social engineering specialists include social science principles so they can truly connect with society and achieve their main goals. By using all the the insights that are available to them with their understanding of human psychology they can truly help people within these marginalized groups knowing their background and later on making them successful in the workforce.  

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