Generally speaking, a job in cybersecurity requires an interdisciplinary set of
technical abilities, intellectually challenging domains, and research-focused subject
disciplines. It is a job that is significant to securing the social and technological domains
of human life; security awareness trainers rely extensively on social science research
and ideas. Understanding human motivations, decision-making processes, and the
social engineering tactics used by attackers are critical for developing effective security
awareness initiative programs that are effective, influencing positive security behaviors
within an organization, and developing more effective security strategies that are more
user-friendly and benefit a diverse population because it affects everyone around us.
I am new to this field, and everything that I have gone through in the courses that
I have taken for Cybersecurity, all have similar paths. The field keeps evolving, but one
thing for sure is that social science research and social science principles are needed in
the execution of daily tasks. They use these factors to address individual behavior,
marginalized populations, and broader societal effects that keep changing.
As a security awareness trainer, you are required to be a subject matter expert
that will be able to create updated training for all personnel, be able to create and teach
about current cyberattacks and to be able to explain it in as simple as possible terms. I
have always been involved in training personnel, so it comes easy to me, because I
understand the social factor of the equation, you need to understand your audience to
be able to get through a well thought out training season. Not to mention other related
tasks that will be needed by whomever I end up working for.
Cybersecurity awareness training is an essential part of protecting an
organization’s information and systems from cyber threats, but it has to be done right,
and properly documented, one must keep all records to track all the changes and
trainees. As cyber-attacks become more complex and frequent, personnel must be
educated on how to recognize and respond to these dangers. This paper examines
ways for effective cybersecurity awareness training, with a focus on identifying typical
cyber hazards such as phishing, malware, and social engineering, as well as
implementing data protection best practices. which again falls into social sciences due
to the fact that you need to identify key components necessary, human components and
key strategies based on your audience that might be effective and be more vulnerable
than others.
As companies and individuals rely more as digital technologies advance and
evolve, the possibility of cyberattacks and data breaches increases on a daily basis,
training will always be required to be updated as well. Cybersecurity is necessary not
only to safeguard sensitive data and systems, but also to protect an organization’s
reputation which can bankrupt a company if broken, preserve customer trust, and
comply with local and government regulations.
By identifying your audience, you should be able to create a training plan that
can be successful, you might want to incorporate interactive learning for does that
learned better with visuals, live security drills to keep awareness and to keep them on
their toes, practice simulated attacks to see how they respond, and can even make it
fun for them, so they can retain the information better, because games can directly have
people more engage and be better prepare and be enhance their understanding of
cybersecurity.
Every group is different and requires a different approach, cybercriminals do not
discriminate, we are all equals that have something that can be taken, if we let them.
I know that by having interactive training makes for a better workplace, not only
that they are learning, they are engaging in practice and are building comradery within
themselves, straightening the companies security. It is imperative to build a more
conscious-security culture within the workplace, building from lessons learned and
personal involvements and consistent training, something that some companies lack.
My 27 years in the company I work for, only required compilations, so within the
office, we passed the answers to the annual cybersecurity training, we even completed
it for personnel not present. All the company and manager cared is that we all met the
deadline to be able to brief higher up that we were good on training. Going thru the
courses i have learned and value more what back in the day was just consider a simple
task with no importance, but as we move forward, and we learn more and more about
the risk of cyber threats, and on how devastating they can be to a person or company, it
need to be a more rigid way to make people understand the risk so that they can be
capable to report and mitigate the risk associated with cybersecurity threats.
In conclusion, any field related to cybersecurity like this one, relies heavily in the
social science research and social science principles because it involves people, at the
end of every key board, regardless of what they are doing there is a human person at
the end, this is an evolving field, and my believe is that it will never stop growing, there
will always be a new innovation, a new hack so they will always be something new to
learn. Understanding the human mind is the next frontier, to understand human
behaviors on the why of things. One thing for sure is that we will always be connected to
the web, so we need to understand the human connection to the love of technology.
References:
Khando, K., Gao, S., Islam, S. M., & Salman, A. (2021, April 16). Enhancing employees
information security awareness in private and public organisations: A systematic
literature review. Computers & Security.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167404821000912
Prümmer, J., Steen, T. V., & Berg, B. V. D. (2023, November 9). A systematic review of
current cybersecurity training methods. Computers & Security.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167404823004959
Ready, M., & Ok, E. (2024, January 13). (PDF) cyber security awareness
training:strategies for educating employees on Cyber Threats and Safe Practices.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/388508669_Cyber_Security_Awareness_Train
ingStrategies_for_educating_employees_on_cyber_threats_and_safe_practices