Course Overview and Objectives

Cyber Terrorism (CRJS495) is a course that focuses on the upcoming threat of terrorism tactics delivered through cyberspace. Terrorism focuses on instilling fear in its victims through violence and destruction, and attacks on power grids and other industrial infrastructure could cause widespread damage. Terorrism also can use social media to promote violence and gain financial support. The course centered around a Scaffolding Assignment that was a 10 page research essay on different tools cyberterrorists could potentially use. Throughout the course, we talked about the politics surrounding terrorism and how radicalization was aided by the internet.

Projects

My first artifact is a short presentation I created to outline the topics covered in my final essay. It explains concepts like drones, cryptocurrency, and high technology weapons so that anyone can quickly get a grasp of what the topics mean. The final essay, which is my second artifact, goes much deeper in depth into how terrorists could or already use each technology in order to carry out cyber terrorism attacks. The reason I included this artifact is because I think staying ahead in cybersecurity is important, as everything is moving fast and you need to be quick to adapt to changes. Both of these artifacts go beyond the general scope of college ODU courses and show deep understanding of emerging technologies.

Reflection

This course was great for me because it helped me explore the future threats of cybersecurity. Throughout my research paper, I became more knowledgeable in various topics such as drones, cryptocurrency, and social media. I am now a huge proponent of AI and use it to help clarify cybersecurity subjects all the time. I also developed an interest in threat hunting as well as how to identify Indicators of compromise. Admittedly, these potential attacks do make me somewhat worried about warfare in the future, as it adds a whole other domain to conflict. Although this course didn’t require much problem solving, which was one of my main skills, it definitely improved my ability to present information as we had discussions about the class material everyday, and we would explain our findings/views to both a small group and the whole class. Having public speaking and presentation skills are important in any field, and could help me down the road with interviews and conferences.