Q: After watching the video, write a journal entry about how you think the media influences our understanding about cybersecurity.

A: Throughout the video, there were several movies that ended up having a very faithful and accurate protrayal of hacking, cyberattacks, and cybersecurity in general, offering an entertaining and enlightening portrayel of how cybersecurity specialists and hackers manipulate the cyberspace; however, there were a lot of movies that either portrayed it incorrectly, had the right terminology and methods but very “fictional” ideas for how its displayed, and generally misunderstood a lot about the technology and methods that go into everything. Furthermore, a lot of the more of the mistakes made in these films and hollywood movies seem to be just generally misunderstanding how technologies and cybersecurity aspects actually function, such as hexadecimal and other digital numerical notations, certain hacking technologies and how they operate, and the process of how encryption is displayed and calculated. When casually watching these movies and catching these mistakes, someone with casual cybersecurity knowledge would just see these errors as simple mistakes, perhaps they could be silly in nature but not harmful, and a normal viewer probably wouldn’t even think about how incorrect these portrayels are. However, taking a step back and viewing the bigger picture, I believe that this uncomplete view of cybersecurity and the methodology/processes that go into everything paints a poor image into how much we truly understand the world of cybersecurity. We may not all live in the Matrix or have complex, 3D images portraying coding and the interconnected cyberspace (yet), but the importance of cybersecurity and the real risk of cyberattacks for anyone is no futuristic vision: it’s a reality. When movie directors and creators actually do their research and incorporate real cybersecurity elements, it’s incredibly satisfying and offers a semi-real look into how the processes work, not only encouraging people to go see a fascinating movie but also encouraging people to do their own research and learn about cybersecurity. However, when movies don’t do their research and sloppily put together ideas and motifs for huge, hollywood films, it simply emphasizes the need of proper education of cybersecurity and it’s important in our day and age, especially as our lives become more and more dependent of technology as a resource. From my perspective, the media’s portrayel of cybersecurity showcases it as more of a “cool” thing that isn’t realistic and something that only could exist in fiction or a movie, but the issue that’s arrising isn’t that movies shouldn’t necessarily portray futuristic, unrealistic cybersecurity concepts, it’s the neglect of showcasing the actual, real world situation of cybersecurity and how important it really is outside of the theater.

References:

• [Insider]. (2021, March 16). Hacker Rates 12 Hacking Scenes In Movies And TV | How Real Is It? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=6BqpU4V0Ypk