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.
CYSE 200 was one of the first courses that introduced me to my major. One assignment that stood out to me through out the course was when we had to research and write a brief paper on SCADA Systems. I remember this assignment very well because one the kind of work my father does, in which he uses these systems on a daily basis.
Furthermore, I gain a little insight on what Cybersecurity is partially about. This assignment taught me that critical infrastructure is a term used to describe infrastructure, systems and assets that are essential for the society and economy. In addition, sometimes they have some vulnerabilities and threats that have to deal with energy, transportation, public health and health care, lack of encryption, default configuration, chemical and hazardous material, policies and procedures and many more. SCADA helps in observing, monitoring and controlling the cycle of business and data in order to prevent threats and vulnerabilities to critical infrastructure. In this future, I plan on incorporating my knowledge about SCADA systems into my own business.
Below is my artifact, which is about SCADA Systems, and the assignment was to write something about SCADA Systems.
SCADA SYSTEMS
Emmanuel Agyei
11 November, 2020
As we move forward in the modern world, there are so many vulnerabilities and threats that affect our critical infrastructure. According to the Department of Multimedia Engineering, critical infrastructure is a term used to describe infrastructure, systems and assets that are essential for the society and the economy. Furthermore, their infrastructure and assets sometimes have some vulnerabilities and threats. Some of their vulnerabilities have to deal with energy, transportation, public health and health care, lack of encryption, default configuration, chemical and hazardous material, policies and procedures and many more. In addition, the threats can be put under 3 groups, natural threats, human caused threats and accidental or technical threats.
The natural threats can be weather problems, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and more. Next is the human caused threats, which can be cyber attacks, rioting product tampering, bombings and more. SCADA, Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition system plays a big role in observing, monitoring and controlling the whole cycle of business processes and data. It helps in the prevention of vulnerabilities and threats to Critical infrastructure. According to the article SCADA Systems, “Nearly all the control actions are automatically performed by the remote terminal units (RTUs) or by the programmable logic controllers (PLCs).” SCADA is very significant for industrial organizations because they help maintain efficiency, communicate systems issues to help mitigate downtime and also process data for smarter decisions.
Furthermore, the system is made to notify the operator if the product is showing any errors, the operator then stops the system and tries to find the cause of the problem. They are able to view this information through an HMI, this shows the operator whatever he/she needs to know to solve the problem and try to prevent it from happening again. Many companies and organizations use SCADA, they are arguably the most significant systems in modern industries. Some of these industries that use SCADA have to deal with energy, manufacturing, oil and gas, power, recycling, water, waste water, transportation food and many more.
http://article.nadiapub.com/IJCA/vol1_no1/3.pdf
https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/topic/scada-security-of-critical-infrastructure