- Why are you interested in cybersecurity technology?
- Select four other majors offered by ODU and explain how those majors relate to cybersecurity.
Cybersecurity technology started to interest me in just the last few years. After a 20 career as a pilot, I transitioned out of the cockpit and started working in aviation operations. During that time, my company started to roll out what we called “EFB” or electronic flight bag. This had what used to be paper copies of maps, publications, flight data, route, location, etc. Now converted into data on an iPad and in a cloud based system. I was involved in the roll out of this system and was on the ticket team to address bugs and user errors. I learned a lot about keeping data safe and was working hand and hand with our IT personnel. When I was a kid I played computer games, I’ve built a few computers and have always had an interest in computers and software, pre-internet. I am sure if they had this technology when I was coming up I would have been coding, building websites, learning about the internet. Unfortunalty, when I grew up with a 386 dos computer the internet had just started. It did not develop to the point of needing cybersecurity until after I was already in the Army and flying. Now I get to revisit my interest as an adult.
After I retired from this position, I had a basic knowledge of computer technology and had a new found interest in data, computers and data security. We live in a society today that there is a potential cyber threat against a person almost daily through email, social media, chat boards, etc. The amount of precautions you have to take as an individual, daily, to protect your data and identity is very important to protect yourself. I moved back to the Virginia area and started to look for degree programs in the field and here I am. Looking forward to the journey.
Examples of majors at ODU that relate to cybersecurity include.
- Accounting-You send your financial data and personal information to an accountant or online service such as TurboTax and expect that the information you provide is secure. How your accountant or website sets up their technology to send, receive and store your personal and financial information is very important to not only you, but to the success of the business handling that information.
- Clinical Psychology-Private medical information (PMI). I dealt with this as a pilot for hospitals. How do we keep it private? When you see a medical provider or are a medical provider with PMI, you have a legal obligation to not disclose this information and to store this information securely. Cybersecurity plays a huge roll in that. This psychologist will have access to information and will need to store it and transmit it to other providers securely and need to have secure commutations with the patient.
- Criminal Justice-You will probably see more cybersecurity specialist needed in this field as we move more towards crimes that are committed on the internet. Drugs, human trafficking, fraud, etc. While in the first two examples we talked about our own personal and professional online security. Now we go the opposite direction. We need people in this field to intercept protected information. If someone is committing a crime against an accountant or a psychologist to try and steal information, we need be able to detect and investigate these threats. Cybersecurity professionals on law enforcement task forces are absolutely important to aid the team in the investigation and prosecution process.
- E-Commerce-If you sell a product online this relates to you. More and more companies are transition to e-commerce. When you are a company that is buying and selling products online there are many ways in which cybersecurity can aid in the protection of your data. You have a business strategy, pricing information, customer data, product data, employee data, internal and external communication. A cyber threat that gains access to your company systems could be catastrophic to your business. The customers would find out their data has been compromised and you may lose business. You could be shut down completely which would prevent you from doing business. You could lose company and proprietary products to competitors or business strategy and pricing information. Cybersecurity professionals are needed in these organizations to limit, mitigate, or completely protect company information.