Application Of Psychology In Computer Science Career

My major is computer science with a minor in cybersecurity. In this field, there are many different types of positions such as security engineers, network administrators and system administrators. I plan on pursuing a security engineering position, wherein I will be designing and defending computer systems and networks. More specifically, responsibilities of a security engineer can include things such as implementing and tracking security parameters to protect systems and networks, and looking for vulnerabilities and weaknesses. Overall, my role will be to design and implement security frameworks and network architectures for protecting and monitoring systems and networks against hackers.

There are many different psychological concepts or ideas that can be applied to my future career. Psychology can help me to understand how a hacker thinks and how he may try to penetrate a network. Psychology can also help me to understand how sociological influences can motivate cyber attacks and to understand the human weaknesses of a computer system.

Study 1: The fields of psychology and computing have been mutually beneficial to each other through the history of the disciplines. These two disciplines have helped each other evolve. This study was designed to exemplify the benefits of teaching psychology to cybersecurity students. One of the psychological concepts that could be taught to cybersecurity students is cognitive science. This will allow cybersecurity students to apply what they learned in their future career. For example, cybersecurity students that take cognitive science are exposed to different methods an attacker could go about solving a problem or breaking into a system. This study has shown that many cybersecurity incidents could be correlated to common psychological concepts such as disinhibition. There are many different concepts taught to the cybersecurity students in this psychological study. These concepts include: cognition/social psychology, individual differences, research methods, and ethics. These are all extremely important topics for any cybersecurity student in our advanced era. Overall, this study taught cybersecurity students how to apply many different psychological concepts to their careers. In this study there was a multitude of psychological topics that were covered with cybersecurity students. I think the most beneficial class to my future career would be social psychology. This will allow me to understand social interactions and how people interact with systems or other individuals.

I could also apply cognition or cognitive science to my career in a way that allows me to understand how hackers make decisions to break into systems and how they manage to successfully break into these system. Ethics is also one of the biggest psychological concepts I can apply to my career. As a security engineer, there is an enormous amount of ethics that come with the job. A security engineer is likely going to encounter sensitive information, and if they don’t have a strong moral compass or strong ethics, they can make wrong decisions. These wrong decisions can result in serious cyber consequences and business consequences. This is why in my future career it is important to have a strong code of ethics. Overall, I feel like this study has already helped me in my future career, and I can’t wait to study more of these concepts.

Study 2: This study exemplifies that users are the weakest link in cybersecurity. In the article, they stress that we should focus some attention on “tackling the weakest link”. If we focus that attention on the users and how to prevent errors, we can minimize risks and prevent breaches or attacks from occurring. Overall, this study signifies the importance of user error and why it is important to prevent. Although many people consider humans the weakest link in security, this study exemplified that only about 25% – 50% of users make the wrong decisions in real life scenarios. With this newly found knowledge, I can apply this to my future career in many ways. One way is to help users become more security aware with every interaction. For example, in talking to a customer or client, I can provide tips for them to stay secure online or on computer systems. Some tips that I could provide would be to not download from any popups on the Internet. That one simple tip could prevent multiple viruses and help the user stay safe and secure. Overall, I think this study will help me become stronger in security awareness and help me spread security awareness to my employer.

Study 3: During this study, the main focus is on the social and psychological aspects of security actions and decisions. This study exemplified that users will change their security related behavior based on social factors. During the study, Facebook helped implement their research methods by allowing them to gather data on how people would use the newly implemented security tools. They included some social information to determine whether or not security decisions are socially driven. In conclusion, this study shows how security implementations spread between users. This could be an extremely helpful psychological concept for me as a security engineer.

Since I will be constantly implementing new security frameworks and tools, this psychological concept is definitely useful in my future career. As a security engineer, I will need to know how to spread my security tools and implementations to the users efficiently. Overall, the understanding and implementation of social psychology is essential in the position of a security engineer.

Study 4: This study was conducted to determine the relationship between malicious actions and the actual user. They used psychological concepts to determine some of the causes or intentions behind malicious actions against systems and networks. The current cybersecurity mindset where we focus on system and network security is no longer working. This study explains why we should be focusing on user interaction and user intent when it comes to security. This study shows the importance of human factors in the security field. Overall, this study was designed to characterize maliciousness as it relates to actions on systems. This study can help me in many different ways in my future career. After understanding and reading this study, I will be able to have a proper mindset for cybersecurity. With this proper mindset, I will be able to understand cyber-attacks better and why hackers hack. When an attack occurs, I might be able to better prevent it by better understanding the intent behind the attack or the mindset of the malicious user.

Overall, this study will help me tremendously when it comes to understanding the intention and mindset of malicious users in my future career. I learned that there are many different psychological concepts that I can apply to my future career. One of the most important things I learned is how critical a role ethics plays in the cybersecurity field. I also learned that cognitive science would help me understand how humans solve problems and think. Additionally, having an understanding of the psychology behind a malicious cyber attack can help me to prevent or minimize these types of attacks. As a security engineer, I will be encountering many different issues and problems throughout my career. These psychological concepts and principals will help me solve these issues and allow me to work more effectively and efficiently.