I became interested in cybersecurity when I was assigned to write a paper on the topic. While researching I became blatantly aware of how technology illiterate I had become. Learning about the famous attack on Iran’s nuclear program, Stuxnet, and countless other recent attacks such as the SolarWinds hack to the hack on the Colonial Pipeline have made me realize that a new era of warfare has longed arrived. Our entire society is built around these digital infrastructures and until recently I had not given much thought that almost anything digital could be hacked. Once sobering up to this newfound reality, I could not help but feel incredibly vulnerable. There is a war approaching, arguably already here, and I have no skills to defend. Unlike ever before, anyone with the right skills and motivation can be a key player in the world of cyber. Adversaries are taking advantage of lucrative systems to cause real havoc on not only nation-states but companies and individuals. This startling realization of the accessible vulnerability we have in our essential infrastructure has become an alarming concern for me.
Moore’s Law states: that roughly every two years computers become faster, better, and cheaper. I would argue that Moore’s Law is becoming outdated, as, for in recent years, technology appears to be moving much quicker than that. It is intriguing to me that cybersecurity is an arena where you have to stay hungry for learning as it is an ever-evolving field. Matters of much interest to me such as freedom of speech, and privacy have become intertwined into the dome of cybersecurity. The subject has become enticingly intricate to me as there is endless avenues and areas of information to completely digest. I am interested in this field because I want to fight, protect, and defend our information from adversaries that want to exploit and cause real devasting damages. Cybersecurity has surprised me, for I would have never thought that this topic would ignite much interest, but it has, and I’m ready to absorb more.