The concept of cyber security issues is one of the rapidly increasing key concerns in technology. Every company requires a cybersecurity department to safeguard its security due to the increased cyberattacks cases. As such, the area has recorded growing career opportunities in the market. However, one of the main growing careers opportunities in cybersecurity is the chief security officer (CSO) vacancy. Mainly, the CSO in any company is the executive responsible for ensuring the safety and security of the company data, assets, and the company personnel. However, the CSO professional mainly requires and depends on social science research and social science principles in a variety of ways to execute their work flawlessly (Dawson & Thomson, 2018). The paper discusses how CSO professionals need and rely on social science research and social science principles in their careers.

The chief executive officers depend on social science research to help them predict humans’ behavior (Barth, 2018). CSO professionals in their career gather, analyze and interpret information about human behaviors depending on their understanding of social science. As such, the research is significant in the profession since it helps monitor and respond to the cybersecurity team’s undesirable behaviors (Barth, 2018). Besides, it can help chief security officers interpret the behaviors of the customers and members of society in the location to help them lay the foundation of the best measures to safeguard the data breaches and safeguard private organizational assets. Moreover, it can assist in limiting human threats to the organization’s data and assets.  

Additionally, social science research can help CSO professionals increase the welfare of humanity in the team and the surrounding society (Barth, 2018). Mainly, social science research helps individuals understand the expected people’s interests and backgrounds and fundamentally comprehend the relative solution to increase the welfare of humanity so that every person in the team can feel considered. As such, social science research will help the CSO safeguard the interests of the marginalized. Therefore, in the CSO responsible of protecting and responding to the emerging crisis in the personnel the research will help them detect, defend and deal with employee disagreements resulting from emotional and sexual harassment. As such, it can help them reduce the effects of specific stereotypes against marginalized groups.

Chief security officers require an understanding of the social science principle of Objectivity to help them execute their tasks without any biasness. The principle states that ascertain and beliefs are either true or false; however, the objectivity methods must be incorporated to verify the truth of any argument or perception (Dawson & Thomson, 2018). As such, CSO professionals should embrace the principle in their career to help them prove the validity of the existing societal arguments, such as a particular group’s perception of community bias toward specific individuals and personal interests. For instance, when personnel in cybersecurity claims sexual harassment from another employee, the CSO can incorporate objective methods to verify the validity of the claims. As such, the CSO professionals operating on this principle’s domains can help to reduce the discrimination and impunity forced on marginalized groups (Jagalur et al., 2018).

In addition, chief security officer professionals depend on the social science principle of relativism in their careers. Mainly the principle argues that there are no universal morally valid morals principles. As such, the degree of moral rightness or wrongness of particular actions depends on the moral lessons of the society, since in one society, one issue can be morally right; however, it can be very wrong in other organizations. As such, the CSO professionals require the principle to adapt to the diverse ethical relativism of personnel from different societies they came alongside in their careers (Jagalur et al., 2018). Besides, the principle helps them incorporate flexible risk management strategies and incident response tactics that are morally acceptable to society. Besides, the knowledge can help them incorporate security privacy strategies according to the morals acceptable in the specific society.

Additionally, chief security officer professionals require the social science principle of ethical neutrality in executing their tasks. Mainly the code of ethical neutrality states the state of fairness and impartiality in cybersecurity tasks. As such, they should depend on this principle so that they can consider any values as desirable or undesirable since every action has a corresponding impact on the overall security of the user’s data. Therefore, this means that CSO should behave in a specific way that preserves the interests, values, and preferences and consider opinions from the cybersecurity team neutrally. As such, by abiding by ethical neutrality, these CSO professionals should communicate these risks so the affected members of society can make informed decisions when performing risk management for any form of attack (Jagalur et al., 2018).

Moreover, chief security officers require the social science of skepticism due to the increased security threats in society. The principle involves the attitude of doubting knowledge arguments presented in various fields. The CSO professionals require this principle to be able to challenge the reliability or adequacy of any proposed strategies to ensure safety protocols in any organizational security architecture. Moreover, many cyber security attacks have revealed the connection between an inward employee with the hackers (Jagalur et al., 2018). When the CSO professionals are skeptical, they develop a questioning attitude about any malicious behavior or actions among the cybersecurity personnel hence reducing the chances of possible sensitive leakages and marginalized groups harassment (Dawson & Thomson, 2018). Besides, the ability can enable the CSO to involve the societal impact on whether the incorporated safeguards their privacy and security requirements.

Nevertheless, the CSO requires and depends on the social science principles of determinism and parsimony in their career. Mainly, determinism argues that when people make a specific decision, it’s impossible whether they would have made any other decisions or actions. As such, the CSO as the executive in the cybersecurity team should embrace long-term decision-making, ensuring a divertive organizational culture to ensure it considers all personnel and user opinions with ethical neutrality (Jagalur et al., 2018). Additionally, the principle of parsimony helps CSO ensure they evaluate the costs of every strategy to ensure they incorporate the techniques requiring the least materials to economize the organization’s assets (Dawson & Thomson, 2018). As such, they can consider hiring cheap labor from the society to ensure the region’s members also benefit.

 Briefly, chief security officers require and depend on social science research due to its significant importance in their careers. Mainly, the study helps these professionals to predict the behavior of humans to help them protect the personnel and safeguard the organization physical assets. Besides, it helps increase the welfare of humanity in the team and surrounding society. Moreover, the CSO also requires an understanding of the specific social science principles. They help in healthy decision making, non-bias execution and equal considerations of opinions. There is a significant relationship between the CSO tasks with the marginalized groups and society as a whole. Therefore, I recommend that CSO professionals be trained in social sciences since it’s crucial in their career.

References

Barth, S., Hartel, P. H., Junger, M., & Montoya, L. (2019). Teaching Empirical Social-Science Research to Cybersecurity Students: The Case of\” Thinking Like a Thief\”. IEEE Secur. Priv., 17(3), 8-16.

Dawson, J., & Thomson, R. (2018). The future cybersecurity workforce: going beyond technical skills for successful cyber performance. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 744.

Jagalur, P. K., Levin, P. L., Brittain, K., Dubinsky, M., Landau-Jagalur, K., & Lathrop, C. (2018, November). Cybersecurity for civil society. In 2018 IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society (ISTAS) (pp. 102-107). IEEE.