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

There are eight different principles of science that relate to the research of cybersecurity and explain how it’s currently evolving and changing every day: Relativism, Objectivity, Empiricism, Parsimony, Ethical Neutrality, Determinism. Relativism describes all of the different relationships between cybersecurity and the other systems around it. For instance, the growth and adaptation of technology into all facets of businesses and companies leads to the growth of cybersecurity, since preventative measures are required to protect these organization’s assets and data. In addition, this growth and adaptation of technology into businesses also leads to the growth of computer hackers who commit cybercrimes against these organizations, which in turn leads to the growth of cybersecurity. Another important principle of science is objectivity, which insures that cybersecurity specialists view any situation from the facts without viewing it from personal views. Objectivity must be applied in any given cybersecurity situation that requires research, such as for instance if police should be involved in cyber investigations after a cyber crime is committed; while people may have conflicting personal opinions regarding this subject, it’s important to approach this situation by examining the facts. Similarly, Empiricism states that scientists should only view research and situations from what is real (such as the five senses), again choosing to ignore personal beliefs and opinions that could get away from the objective truth. Furthermore, Parsimony leads into this idea of addressing these cybersecurity situations in a professional way, however parsimony requires that the answer to such research should be simplified to the best of social scientist’s ability. After all, research into cybersecurity can be quite complex, and simplifying it ensures that people and scientists alike can easily understand the research and it’s explanations. Next, Ethical Neutrality ensures that when researching cybersecurity, procedures are adhering to ethical norms and aren’t causing harm to other people or organizations. For example, if a situation calls for increasing security into a company’s cyber infrastructure at the cost of requiring more personal information in order to authenticate employees in the system, ethical neutrality would be used to properly answer this question. Lastly, determinism describes instances where something is predetermined as an outcome regardless of individual choices made to prevent it. Going back to a prior example, if an organization adapts more technology into their systems that processes things like personal information or PII, then the growth of cybercrime committed could be a “determined” outcome. Granted, I personally think that every cybercrime that’s committed always follows a choice and determinism doesn’t work in every cybersecurity situation, but if this is being viewed through an objectivity or empiricism lens, then the correlation reins true; plus, while not working in every instance, determinism like most of its other social science lens can be used as a principle to explain certain ideas and situations in cybersecurity.