CYSE 202G Communities of Practice

  • 1. Cybersecurity advances compared to advances by hackers, and malware developers in recent years has fallen behind in terms of speed but has kept up in terms of effectiveness. Today it’s different from when cybersecurity was first an issue of “ransom people can log into our network” and now it’s more an issue of “hackers can literally hold our entire network, and company hostage if we don’t adequately protect ourselves from them”. One of the only constants, like they said in the video, between now and when cybersecurity first developed, is that humans are often the weakest link in a network’s defenses. They also said that many of the human errors could be solved by better educating users. This is where the role of professional, experienced cybersecurity experts, and researchers comes in. They can work together to develop procedures, and protocols as well as training programs to help educate not only up and coming cybersecurity professionals, but also regular users in an organization as well. It would also lend itself to keeping up with the rapid pace at which malware and hackers have been developing in recent years. By utilizing the experience and know-how of researchers, and experienced professionals, we can better counteract the dangers facing cybersecurity today from a lack of education in such matters.
  • 2. For regulation, they spoke in the video of using a council of professionals, as well as government legislation for use in regulating cybersecurity, and certain technological industries. I personally think that having a “council” would be effective in the way that they can make suggestions for best practice and notify cybersecurity professionals of dangers developing that could impact networks. The drawback of this is that it might not be an official government position, and it could lead to some people impersonating or pretending to be members of this unofficial council of “cybersecurity elders” which could lead to misinformation, and potentially more dangers as people claim to be part of the “Council of Elders”. Also, as they said in the video, nothing from this council would be set in stone, it would be more of list of suggestions rather than a guideline, which could have limited benefit, if not outright ignored.
  • 3. Another regulation prospect they talked about was government regulation. I think government regulation and legislation would help to better develop uniform guidelines, and guide companies, and professionals away from more dangerous protocols. The drawback is that it might be painfully slow to enact some legislation or regulatory acts, and it may be in danger of being used as more of a political tool rather than a regulatory body for cybersecurity. Not only that, but as they said in the video, regulations might not consider accessibility, or performance of a network; blanket legislation in regard to cybersecurity could hurt a company more than help to protect it.