Cyber Professional Career Paper: Social Science with Security Analyst
Khabir Quddus
School of Cybersecurity, Old Dominion University
CYSE 201S: Cybersecurity and the Social Sciences
Diwakar Yalpi
4/15/26
Introduction
The Cybersecurity digital environment has always been seen as the technical side regarding career pathways. The central focus of cybersecurity revolves around the principles of Social Science just to be effective in our world today. The career path that I wanted to get into was a Security Analyst. The responsibilities that a security analyst has are not just technical stuff like threat detection or system monitoring but around human interactions. Interactions can allow people to better understand unique human behaviors like psychologically, economically, and even socially. This is where Social Science comes into play with understanding and dealing with how a security analyst approaches any security threat like engineering attacks, vulnerability protection, and a person’s behavior to make rational decisions in the field. This paper will help people understand how the principles of social science can play a major role in a security analyst life and how it will impact society which will include marginalized groups.
The Distinct Role of a Security Analyst
A security analyst responds to monitor and dealing with threats like malware or breaches in data. This helps protect data from any cybercrime threats. Phishing attacks and ransomware are all problems to this day and while the majority of cybersecurity relies on technical tasks, it also has the problem of human behavior getting involved causing these incidents. Individuals that are not aware of suspicious deals or links online like gift cards for example and voluntarily clicking on them are not informed that they are now a phishing attack victim. Human behavior is a major factor when it comes to this profession, and it is up to security analyst to study this behavior and how it greatly affects technology (Parsons et al., 2017).
How Sociology behavior plays with Security Analyst
In cybersecurity, Sociology plays a good part in the field because it focuses on individuals behavior and how it affects cyber security situations. In a workplace, things like communication and social structuring are important to get the hang of being a security analyst to help mitigate. Communicating can lead to better results like strong security procedures or handling threats fast and efficiently. If we lack social norms then people’s lack of social behavior may lead to bad habits like not updating systems or maintaining strong passwords. Ransomware being a huge threat can lead to serious issues but mitigating the problem with spreading awareness can lead to promising results (Ryan, 2021).
Psychology role as a Security Analyst
Psychology being one of the most important social science procedures in the cybersecurity field. Cyber criminals that commit crimes like hacking personal information or copying identities of loved ones using AI as an example, can mentally hurt the people affected emotional mentality. Security analysts need to help grasp the causes of a person’s mental decline and help by making defensive procedures to make sure future people don’t get affected (Wiederhold, 2014). Simulations that run phishing attacks and training awareness programs can help mitigate potential threats from happening with fast and efficient decision making (Parsons et al., 2017).
Economic and Marginalized Groups in Security Analyst
Economics also plays a role in being a security analyst due to knowing about cost efficiency and security risk management. Cybersecurity isn’t cheap because as a security analyst, security technology to upgrade firewalls, training employees for any cybercrime threat or even just monitoring any system problems, can be a make or break regarding how impactful future threats are in cybersecurity. Security analysts don’t just protect organizations but individuals that have low income or even older adults because these people are the prime targets of cyber criminals due to not having funds for training nor knowledge on how to avoid cyberattacks. Identity theft can happen to individuals who are unfamiliar with little to no security procedures like weak password management as an example. Security analysts can help ensure security systems remain functional, so people wouldn’t be scared to use anything online related when doing stuff like insurance or even banking.
Conclusion
The closing roles on being a security analyst has its work cut out when it comes to the responsibilities within the cybersecurity field. Cybersecurity isn’t just covered by the technical side of things, but how people interact can change into a cyber threat. The principle of social science plays a huge part with psychology, socially, and economics because each can help an individual understand cyber threats and mitigate them. Cyber threats will grow as new technology issues arise as well as upgrades. Social science in cybersecurity will continue to grow as well to combat these cyber threats.
References
Parsons, K., Calic, D., Pattinson, M., Butavicius, M., McCormac, A., & Zwaans, T. (2017). The Human Aspects of Information Security Questionnaire (HAIS-Q): Two further validation studies. Computers & Security, 66(66), 40–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2017.01.004
Ryan, M. (2021). The Sociology of Ransomware. Advances in Information Security, 143–152. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66583-8_9
Wiederhold, B. K. (2014). The Role of Psychology in Enhancing Cybersecurity. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 17(3), 131–132. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2014.1502
Bishop, M., Gates, C., & Hunker, J. (2009). The sisterhood of the traveling packets. Proceedings of the 2009 Workshop on New Security Paradigms Workshop, 59–70. https://doi.org/10.1145/1719030.1719039