Prompt: Welcome to CYSE 201S and Welcome to the Discussion Board.    This is an asynchronous class – as such, the discussion board will important to share with your classmates.   I expect the School of Cybersecurity Juniors and Seniors to lead the way in the Discussion Board responses! 

• Introduce yourself to your class mates Include your major, your class standing (freshman, sophomore…), anything else that you would want us to knowHave you taken an online class before?  
• Have you had an internship?  If so, where?
• Do you have an ePortfolio created?
  • If so, what format do you use – WordPress or WIX
• If you are a senior, when do anticipate to graduate?
• For all, what are your goals after graduation, if known?

Response: Hello everyone! My name is Raven Hill. I am a senior double majoring in Game Studies & Design and Cybersecurity with a minor in Japanese. My hobbies are video games (Resident Evil, Stardew Valley), drawing, and reading. I have previously taken an online course since I transfer to ODU in Fall 2022. To do online courses, I have learned that you must be self-motivated and self-determined to be successful. Even if that means working harder and conducting some research to further your knowledge of a given topic. I have not done an internship before but I am hoping to start searching for one this semester for either the summer or fall of 2024. I somewhat have an ePortfolio that was started last semester in CYSE 200T with a template that I was instructed to use. This template was created by ODU specifically for cybersecurity students and all the courses they plan to take during their time here. On the other hand, I would like to start working on my own that is not based on a template and is more unique to who I am. Since I am a senior, I hope to graduate in Spring 2025 with my two degrees and minor. After graduation, I would like to be a concept artist for video games while lending a hand in creating the security software for MMO and doing translation work on the side.

Prompt: Describe the top three careers of cyber social science fields that you would be interested in considering. What is it about those jobs that you find interesting? 

Response: The three careers of cyber social science that are interesting to me are Cybersecurity Software Developer/Engineer, Data Recovery Specialist, and Data Security Analyst. I am hoping to use many of the skills I obtain in this major in the video game industry for MMO security. I see these as beneficial jobs that prevent hackers from interfering with the network. To protect our data, we should learn how hackers think and operate when attacking a specific area of data. This is how we can create plans to stop hackers in their tracks before reaching other firewalls and/or their target.

Prompt: Review the NICE Workforce Framework. Are there certain areas that you would want to focus your career on? Explain which areas would appeal the most to you and which would appeal the least.

Response: If I had to select any areas that I would want to focus my career on, it would be the “secure provision.” In the world of video games, online games are becoming more common than they used to be since Covid-19 occurred. Since more people are online interacting with one another in video games and on social media, I believe that being able to identify any threats in the beginning stages would be beneficial for protecting gamers’ identities.

Prompt: What do you think about the principle of determinism as it relates to computer hacking?

Response: According to Merriam-Webster, determinism is: “a theory or doctrine that acts of the will, occurrences in nature or social, or psychological phenomena are causally determined by preceding events or natural laws”. When connecting determinism to computer hacking, I think that these individuals who choose to hack may use computer hacking as a form of revenge for what a company and/or a business has done to them. Computer hacking can show us what behaviors a hacker may have. On the other hand, these hackers are allowing us to see the weak points within a software and a system.

Prompt: Explain how the principles of science relate to cybersecurity.

Response: In cybersecurity, parsimony helps us to understand human behavior in simpler words and explains. Parsimony is one of the challenging sciences that is related to cybersecurity because it can be difficult to explain human behavior as simply as possible. Empiricism involves quite a bit of research because we should rely on our opinions or hunches alone. Ethical neutrality must stick to specific standards while conducting any research. This can involve protecting the rights of any individual that is being used as a “study tool”. Determinism is how the behavior occurred during a particular event. 

Prompt: Visit PrivacyRights.org to see the types of publicly available information about data breaches. How might researchers use this information to study breaches? Enter a paragraph in your journal.

Response: Researchers might use this data to understand what years had the most data breaches compared to others. On the other hand, researchers might use this data to see which states/areas are affected the most by data breaches and the types of data breaches.

Prompt: Apply the phrase victim precipitation to cyber victimization.

Response: Victim precipitation is “a criminology theory that analyzes how a victim’s interaction with an offender may contribute to the crime being committed (McKenna 2016). According to the National Library of Medicine (2022), cyber victimization is “the targeting of individuals using negative behaviors in cyber context as a result of adolescent aggression and electronic cooperation.” Based on these definitions, I would say that the people we meet and/or interact with can have an effect on how a criminal might react. This may either influence how or when a criminal might commit their crime; on the other hand, it might influence the criminal to either stop before acting or turn themselves in because of guilt. Cyber criminals have social anxiety and an internet addiction (honestly, our phones make us all have an internet addiction). Most of these criminals will have online interactions with social media, chat rooms, and/or video games. The people you meet on the internet can either influence you, become your new best friend, or your bully/enemy. Cyber criminals may act upon their original intentions to seek revenge for how they have been wronged. This can even go for people who work from home. If a higher up seems displeased with you or decides to let you go (a.k.a being fired), someone with the skills to code and hack might seek revenge on the company by stealing and releasing company information.

Reference

Eroglu, Peker, & Cengiz (2022. Cyber victimization and well-being in adolescents: The sequential mediation role of forgiveness and coping with cyberbullying. National Library of Medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9716218/#:~:text=Hinduja%20and%20Patchin%20(2008)%20defined,adolescent%20aggression%20and%20electronic%20cooperationLinks to an external site..

McKenna, B. (2016, February 26). Victim Precipitation: Definition & Theory. Study.com. https://study.com/academy/lesson/victim-precipitation-definition-theory.htmlLinks to an external site.

Prompt: Review Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and explain how each level relates to your experiences with technology. Give specific examples of how your digital experiences relate to each level of need.

Response:

Self-actualization → Does really do much except help me to complete my homework. However, I don’t see that as a self-fulfillment need. This just makes it harder to feel any sense of fulfillment.

Esteem needs → Technology doesn’t really give me a sense of accomplishment or help with my esteem. Instead it lowers my self-esteem because people everywhere on the internet just bully one another.

Belongingness and love needs → I don’t really use social media. It is mainly used to see who is in a family that I have never met. I also don’t have any friends so my digital experiences are lacking in this level. The only experience I can say is playing online video games with my boyfriend. However, most of the games I play are single player and not online.

Safety needs → When I use either my laptop or my built pc, I use security software like Maylwarebytes or Windows Security Defender to protect myself from suspicious websites.

Physiological needs → I feel that my digital experiences don’t really fullale any basic need within this level

Prompt: Identify which theories you think best explain cybercrime and discuss what you like about that theory.

Response: I believe that neutralization theory best explains cybercrime. People will find ways to justify their actions and behaviors in any way. An example that we have all probably done is justify why we didn’t do our homework. On the other hand, in the world of cybercrime, people will justify why what they did is illegal. For example, someone decides to pirate Microsoft 360. They will justify by explaining that Microsoft overcharges for their software or explain that Microsoft is too expensive and they can’t afford it right now. They can deny that no one was hurt by doing this except Microsoft would be hurt (maybe) from the loss of money from people not buying the software. Basically, neutralization theory is a narcissist that will do whatever it takes to get away with what they have done wrong.

Prompt: Review the articles linked with each individual motive. Rank the motives from 1 to 7 as the motives that you think make the most sense (being 1) to the least sense (being 7). Explain why you rank each motive the way you rank it.

Response:

1. Revenge → People will do stupid things when someone hurts them. Which leads people down a path to seek revenge and hurt the people who have wronged them.
2. For money → With the way the world is today, I think anyone who has the right skills would hack or do something else that is illegal just to save or make more money.
3. Recognition → Some people will do crazy things to get recognized. This usually happens when these types of people never get any attention because there is always that one person who got to steal the spotlight away from them.
4. Multiple Reasons → People will do things for many different reasons. Do we ever understand why? Sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t.
5. Entertainment → I don’t think anyone will just hack something for fun. Most hackers are after something.
6. Political → I have never understood politics and honestly from what I have seen, it it is too much drama that is all fake.
7. Boredom → Just like everyone else, people will try anything when they are bored but hacking things because your bored does seem like a valid excuse.

Prompt: Describe what you think about the “human firewall.”

Response: According to KPMG, the human firewall is someone who follows the best practices to prevent their data from being stolen. I think the “human firewall” can be a challenging aspect when protecting your personal data and identity because of the level of technology people have experience with. For example, my grandparents who did not grow up with technology would not understand these practices. On the other hand, my brother and I were taught in school and from our father how to protect ourselves online. My father does understand the risk that technology has but he doesn’t fully understand the new risk that are occurring.

References

https://kpmg.com/us/en/articles/2023/human-firewalling.html

Prompt: How can you spot fake websites? Compare three fake websites (don’t access those sites, of course) to three real websites. What makes the fake websites fake?

Response: You can spot fake websites by looking at the URL (or address bar), search for any grammar or spelling errors, and see if they have a social media presence (Chase Bank). These websites are fake if they do not have the “s” at the end of http (the way it should look: https). According to Chase Bank, the “s” means that the website is secure, and if it does not have a ‘s” then the website is not secure. In other words, the website you are on is or could be fake. Honestly, I do not have any experience with fake websites as I dislike online shopping and just reading a lot of the website names just make a website seem like it is fake.

References

“How to check if a website is legit.” Chase. Retrieved 11 February 2024. https://www.chase.com/personal/credit-cards/education/basics/how-to-check-if-a-website-is-legit