Week 1:
Are there certain areas that you would want to focus your
career on? Explain which areas would appeal the most to you
and which would appeal the least.
The area that appeals to me the most and the area that I would want to focus the most on would have to be Investigate. The investigate area is essentially the area where you can do the most field work and forensics. That type of work is what I am most interested in so I’d have to go with Investigate. The area I would least want to go into is Oversee and Govern. I don’t like being in a position of power where I oversee people. I’m the type of person that just wants to do their work, get their paycheck, and go home. I don’t like the thought of having to do extra work and watch over other people’s work. I don’t consider myself lazy, I just don’t want to do more than is necessary.
Week 2:
Explain how the principles of science relates to cybersecurity
There are numerous principles of science that can relate to cybersecurity. One of the simplest to make the connection with is Relativism. Simply put relativism is the principle of everything being related. This can be related to cybersecurity in various ways. As technology advances so too does the need for cybersecurity. For example lets say a hospital transfers from physical pen and paper records to online records. This can increase their productivity and profit by a considerable margin. However, this leaves those records available to being hacked which can then cause those records being sold on the dark web. As a result the hospital can get sued and lose money. This could put less money in circulation on the market if a hospital as well as having less healthy people in the community. This negatively impacts society as a whole thus making the protection of data related to the downfall of society.
Week 3:
Visit PrivacyRights.org to see the types of publicly available information
about data breaches. How might researchers use this information to
study breaches? Enter a paragraph in your journal.
In society one of the most powerful things anyone can have is information. The flow of information is more powerful than money sometimes. Imagine if you knew which stock markets were going to do well 10 years ago. Imagine if you knew that an attack was going to happen before it happened. This being the case means that if you knew more information about how data breaches worked then you could know how to prevent future breaches. That being said researchers should study previous breaches to understand not only the type of breach that happened and how it happened but also the step by step of what went wrong.
Week 4:
Review Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and explain how each level relates
to your experiences with technology. Give specific examples of how your
digital experiences relate to each level of need.
In ascending order the levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs are physiological, safety, belonging and love, esteem, and self-actualization. We can say that technology helps to provide us with all of our basic necessities. Since I was in my high school’s specialty center which specialized in technology I used technology a lot as a teenager. This allowed me to get to my current status with housing, food, and clothing or in other words my physiological needs. Of course where would I be if I didn’t have a job that I had to go online to apply for. My job provides me with healthcare and financial stability. Where would I be today if I didn’t have the many friends that I met online through various apps and program, these friendships are strong enough to the point where I can receive money from them with no strings. Lastly, it is through the influence of various and numerous videos that my passion for cooking became a reality, I have decided that in the future I want to become the best I can be by pursuing a second degree in the culinary arts.
Week 5:
Review the articles linked with each individual motive. Rank the motives from 1 to 7 as the motives that you think make the most sense (being 1) to the least sense (being 7). Explain why you rank each motive the way you rank it.
- Money, in my opinion if you have the skill to do a cybercrime and make money from it, then it’s logical to assume that one would do it.
- Recognition because maybe to them it could land them a job or some kind of monetary gain like what happened with the Elon Musk private jet situation.
- Political because logically using your skills to push your objective makes logical sense.
- Revenge because everyone has been mad at some point and they do stupid things in anger
- Entertainment at number 5 because i can kind of understand if a person does it to maybe test out what they’re capable of and figuring out how things work.
- Boredom at number 6 because it makes no sense to do cybercrimes just because you’re bored.
- Various other reasons in the last spot because it could include a reason that makes a lot of sense or a reason that makes no sense at all.
Week 6:
Can you spot three fake websites and compare them to three real websites, plus showcase what makes the three websites fake?
A useful tell to use when looking at fake websites is to use a website checker which can tell you the reputation of the website. It’s important to look at several factors when determining if a website is legitimate, the URL, the company, and the GUI. The URL can have several inconsistencies from the actual website that otherwise wouldn’t be present. The company backing the website may not actually be a legitimate company. Most high-end companies spend a nice amount of money on website design so their website most likely wouldn’t look freshly made.
Week 7:
Review the following ten photos through a cybersecurity human systems integration framework. Create a meme explaining what is going on in the individual’s or individuals’ mind(s).
https://unsplash.com/photos/R6dSBkz32B8
TMW you’ve won a new iPhone.
This meme relates back to human systems integration because you could take it to mean that the lady got an email or a popup saying that she won a brand-new iPhone when in reality all she’s really won is a brand-new virus for her device. The main point being that people aren’t the safest users when online and these unsafe practices can lead to devices getting compromised.
Week 8:
Watch this video and pay attention to the way that movies distort hackers. Write a journal entry about how you think the media influences our understanding about cybersecurity
I definitely think that media has distorted our view of hackers in a both ways. It’s distorted in a bad way because we tend to take light of people that have the skills to commit cybercrimes. Media has conditioned us to think of hooded people typing extremely fast on like four different monitors and being able to hack and shut down anything in a matter of seconds which just isn’t true. In reality it can take a long time to penetrate these systems with reliable methods. On the other side of it though it can be good for people pursuing a degree in cybersecurity as there’s always going to be people that are in need of these types of services because of propaganda and the media.
Week 9:
Complete the Social Media Disorder scale. How did you score? What do you think about the items in the scale? Why do you think that different patterns are found across the world?
I scored quite low on the social media scale. I don’t tend to use social media at all, so it doesn’t really affect my life at all. I think the items on the scale were reasonable, I do recognize that many of my peers are avid users of social media much more so than me and I don’t really understand it. I think different trends arise because of different social issues in the world. Whereas there’s a war going on in one country will have much different results than say Canada.
Week 10:
Write a paragraph describing social themes that arise in the presentation in the video.
I feel like the presentation did an excellent job at highlighting the job position in general. From a social standpoint it definitely seems like there are a lot of writing and certifications that are required in these jobs. It also was interesting to see that there are numerous connections available to someone in this field. Networking seemed to be an important part of the gaining experience part of it.
Week 11:
Think about how the description of the cybersecurity analyst job relates to social behaviors. Write a paragraph describing social themes that arise in the presentation
Right off the bat, we start with a social behavior of communities. They call the job title different names based on the community it’s in. The video then talks about the way that society needs this job which in turn makes it desirable for those without experience. Moving into the description of the job, it’s normal, standard, career related responsibilities that are in high demand for the current market. An advantage of this job is that it allows the worker to be in many different locations and cultures. It’s also interesting because it requires government interaction in some areas.
Week 12:
Read the sample breach letter at this https://dojmt.gov/wp-content/uploads/Glasswasherparts.com_.pdf “SAMPLE DATA BREACH NOTIFICATION” and describe how two different economics theories and two different social sciences theories relate to the letter.
Right off the bat it feels disingenuous because it starts the letter off by addressing the patron as a customer instead of by their name. I do find it nice of them to inform you even if you’re not an affected party in a breach. It seems like a standard response letter to a breach, nothing to write home about. Per the theory of behavioral economics, one could question why someone would continue to bank at the same place if they are at risk of being compromised again. Also, per the theory of social behaviors it’s apparent that the company was trying hard to get the customer to continue being a member.
Week 13:
Read this article https://academic.oup.com/cybersecurity/article/7/1/tyab007/6168453?login=true and write a summary reaction to the use of the policies in your journal. Focus primarily on the literature review and the discussion of the findings.
I found this topic to be interesting and quite enjoyable to read. It was interesting to see what the costs of these bounties looked like as well as analyzing the actual code itself. It was found out that the code becomes much more difficult to manage and maintain the older that it gets.