The professional career I wanna have when I get older is a Cyber defense operation job. For those who don’t know what exactly that is, here’s a brief description. In a cyber defense operation job I will be in charge of monitoring, preventing, detecting, investigating, and responding to cyber threats that happen 24/7. This has always been a dream job of mine because I have a strong desire in helping keep others information safe and secure because i know i’d want my information to be safe in the cyber world.
But from this course I have learned about a few topics that are very similar and used everyday in my occupation. First in foremost cybersecurity involves humans that range from attackers, defended, administrators, and so many more. Social science has been applied to cybersecurity and is helping the cyber world become better day by day with things like cyber hygiene, data privacy, and user authentication.
Human factor research is the leading role in cybersecurity when it comes to improving the skills and effectiveness in security. They are able to examine situation awareness, effectiveness of training, interruptions on cyber defends tasks and so much more. In studies it has also shown that teamwork practice is starting to become much more effective as well. It allows analysts to look at a wider selection of threats and better understand the cyber defender tasks. In a recent article by Dawson and Thomas in 2018, they strongly suggest that cyber workers will need more than just technology skills in the cyber defense occupations. It’ll need to be more systematic thinking, communication, teamwork, and social skills.
Other things that this course was able to tie into my career is determinism. Determinism means that behavior is caused, influenced, or determined by preceding events. When looking into criminals in the cyber defense world, we have to look at all the events or connections leading up to that exact moment. We have to take everything into effect in order to go with the formatted plan for the system and for those around us. We also have to look at the individual’s motives. This here allows for us to see what exactly the criminal was doing it for like money, entertainment, revenge, etc. Understanding this gives us the opportunity to gather more detail into why and how the systems were attacked. We use traditional field studies, using this method of experiment allows us to see how hackers are evolving year by year. Just like hacker events we can attend those to see if we can spot any new trends within hackers from around the world. And lastly we have white-collar crime which is “a crime committed in a job while the employee is fulfilling their employment”, Even though this might not be something we can stop because you can’t predict a hack attack 99% of the time. But people in my occupation have to deal with a lot of counts of these. Having to go back and fix the system and see what was done by the employee is critical before turning things back to normal.
Groups that are affected the most are elderly people, the military and politicians. Hackers will do whatever they can in order to get the information they need out of these people whether it’s money, personal information, or private information that the public just wouldn’t know. Each group faces a challenge of their own. Elderly people face the problem of technology becoming too “advanced” for them so they’ll forever be at risk of becoming a victim. The Military holds a lot of data that’s critical in protecting the civilians. The problem here is that our enemies want that information in order to over power our nation or possibly blackmail us into giving them something that they’re looking for. And lastly, politicians are always at risk in the cyber world. People will do whatever they can in order to not let someone they don’t want to win win. Therefore, the challenge they face is more so keeping their private information out the way and trying to make themselves look “true” to the public.
In conclusion, society needs people in the cyber defense field just because of how advanced the world is getting by the day. In order for society to thrive on a somewhat normal spectrum we have to keep data safe and attackers out of our systems. Which is why I’m more excited than ever to graduate out of ODU in 2025 and help become a part of the change!
Sources:
CareersintheMil. “Careers in the Military.” Careers in the Military, https://www.careersinthemilitary.com/career-detail/cyber-operations-specialists.
“Cyber Operations Specialist.” Goarmy.com, https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/career-match/signal-intelligence/locations-stats-frequencies/17c-cyber-operations-specialist.html.
“Cyber Operations.” National Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies, https://niccs.cisa.gov/workforce-development/nice-framework/specialty-areas/cyber-operations.
Habte, Fana. “What Is Soc (Security Operation Center)?” Check Point Software, Check Point Software, 19 Sept. 2022, https://www.checkpoint.com/cyber-hub/threat-prevention/what-is-soc/.