These are my journal edits for CYSE201S with what their prompts and my response to them

Journal Entry 1:

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

My Response:

Reviewing the NICE Workforce Framework, I can find many areas that I would want to
focus my career on. From the ones I find to be the most appealing for my career are
Defensive Cybersecurity under Protection and Defense, Cybersecurity Architecture under
Design and Development and Operational Technology Cybersecurity Engineering. I find
these areas the most appealing because they fall in line with my goals of wanting to get
into Defensive Security in my career. Defensive Cybersecurity has multiple different areas
that will help me analyze data to identify what is safe or unsafe within the network and act
upon it. OT Cybersecurity Engineering allows me to progress from taking in the information
from utilizing tools into creating and developing the tools themselves to better serve their
purpose and improve them over time. Cybersecurity Architecture in my opinion brings it all
together to manage and develop the entire organization’s IT Network and Data, taking in
the experience and knowledge of analyzing and developing into creating on a larger scale.

Journal Entry 2:

How does the principle of empiricism enhance the effectiveness of cybersecurity practices?

Reflect on how empirical data collection and analysis can help identify emerging threats, assess the effectiveness of current security measures, and guide the development of new strategies to protect information systems.

My Response:

Empiricism is the idea that knowledge is derived from the senses, for a lot of cybersecurity
most of these senses would be done via sight in the idea of monitoring systems and
correctly identifying and distinguishing between a bad actor from a benign system. There is
more that can be done from my opinion. For example, security is not always technical and
in that would require keeping up with physical security which will require a tactile and
observant mindset to be aware of something going wrong in more than just sight but also
with touch or rather noticing something irregular with an physical environment.

Journal Entry 3:

Visit PrivacyRights.orgLinks to an external site. to see the types of publicly available information about data breaches. How might researchers use this information to study breaches and forecast future data breach trends ? Enter a paragraph in your journal.

My Response:

In PrivacyRights.org You’re given a wealth of information in their site as it releases public
information about Data breaches. This information becomes invaluable to researchers due
to several factors, one of which is when and where new breaches happen, this alone while
useful doesn’t mean a lot of information until you also input the company affected and
what was used to breach it. This allows in real time to put into what hacking methods are
used and need to be defended against while letting consumers know what is going on with
a company they may do readily business with. Knowledge of the number of consumers
affected can also let in the sheer scale of who is affected which can help with relief in
letting consumers know to protect themselves through changing their passwords and
information that can be stolen from them. Lastly researchers can utilize this information
can help with predicting future incidents where an attacker might strike based on similar
systems akin to the ones attacked before and what hacking methods will be employed.

Journal Entry 4:

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.

My Response: Growing up with computer/ digital technology has influenced my life greatly ever since I was young, to the point where I hardly remember the time I’ve lived without it as it has sunk into every aspect of my life as well as the lives of many others, this influence even goes into my fundamental needs within the Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. When I do my shopping online to grab my groceries without wasting money driving there to get Satisfies my Physiological needs. Attached to my door I place a ring camera so that I can know who is at my door and speak to them while in the comfort of my own home fills my safety needs. I fulfill my Belongness and love needs through my friends online who I talk to almost every day to play video games or talk to in general. My Self-esteem I feel as if it doesn’t show itself very much I take pride and a feeling of accomplishment when I learn and do assignments both in my classes and my job which is an example of my esteem needs being met Lastly my Self  actualization comes from my goals of wanting succeed in the Cybersecurity career and become a Security Architect which I have not completed yet but through technology it has created the goal, will help me achieve it and it influences my enough to make it a goal.

Journal Entry 5: Review the articles linked with each individual motive in slide/page #3.  Rank the motives from 1 to 8 as the motives that you think make the most sense (being 1) to the least sense (being 8).  Explain why you rank each motive the way you rank it.

My Response: Within cybercrime there are many reasons for someone to commit it despite the legal
trouble it may put you through, While they all have their reasons I believe that if there was a
ranking of which makes the most sense to the least, the one that makes the most sense is
for money due to that being one of the biggest and largest affects of cybercrime and large
criminal organizations is due to wanting to make money. Second would come to be
political, as given the current landscape political violence and crime being on the sharp
rise I can see this as being a very popular motive. Third comes as revenge as an individual
motive is very common and can lead to someone doing a crime that hurts someone else.
Recognition, and curiosity come as both fourth and fifth mainly due to me thinking they’re
of the same kind of idea where someone may want to commit a cybercrime not to harm a
system for the idea of their self-interest. Boredom comes to me as second to last as I don’t
think it’s reason really stands out more than the other reasons and to me you could lump it
in with many others and the one that makes the least sense to me is entertainment as the
risk doesn’t really make sense given the motive being for their own amusement.

Journal Entry 6:

Can you spot three fake websites? [Refer Online Security Blogs, Public Awareness Sites, Academic Resources etc., and cite the source].

Compare the three fake websites to three real websites and highlight the features and similarities that identify each fake website as fraudulent.

My Response:

Website Spoofing can be a very common and a very dangerous scam, according to a Pew
Research Center study “73% of U.S. adults have experienced some kind of online scam or
attack.” Mostly this comes from either unawareness of the differences, emotional
manipulation through social engineering from creating a sense of urgency or excitement to
bypass critical thinking and a desire to be rewarded the easy way. Anyone can fall for these
hacks due to these circumstances, so it is always to be willfully prepared for each
instance. Take for instance on the site Memcyco paypal.com/signin vs pay-pail.com with it
being obviously misspelled at the pail instead of pal, no sign within the URL nor a / to
depict a difference in an instance or block from the URL as opposed to pay-pail.com where
it continues as one instance. Another example comes from according to Cryptoscam
Defense Network where according to them by using domain names that are closely similar
to the official DMV site such as dmv-ca-gov.com compared to the real site dmv.ca.gov
where the fake site attempts to mask it from being a .gov site but still having a .com site,
having dashes instead of periods being another example of it’s fraudulence. Lastly it is a
fake website from Aura that shows a very seamless yet important change of Walmart.com
vs WaImart.com which shows that the fake website is using a capital “i” instead of a lower
case “l” that comes to using a different domain on such a small but obvious changes that
can make that can make a difference in such attacks.
Works Cited
Arad, Ran. “5 Recent Examples of Fake Websites.” Memcyco, 11 Sept. 2024,
www.memcyco.com/5-recent-examples-of-fake-websites/.
Gottfried, Jeffrey, et al. “Online Scams and Attacks in America Today.” Pew Research
Center, Pew Research Center, 31 July 2025,
www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/07/31/online-scams-and-attacks-in-america-today/.
Sanja, Hunt. “5 Fake Website Examples with Real-World Consequences.” Crypto Scam
Defense Network, 6 June 2025, cryptoscamdefensenetwork.com/fake-website-examples/.
Toohil, Ryan. “How to Identify Fake Websites: 11 Warning Signs to Know.” Edited by Alina
Benny, Aura, Aura, 15 Jan. 2025, www.aura.com/learn/how-to-identify-fake-websites.

Journal Entry 7:

Review the following photos through a human-centered cybersecurity framework. Create a meme for your favorite three, explaining what is going on in the individual’s or individuals’ mind(s).

Meme: POV: An Employee clicked on a phishing email

Explanation: Phishing scams are the most common forms of hacking that can occur and when an organization is hacked it will eventually go into a lessons learned meeting with all the employees in a not so good situation that occurred due to human error.

Meme: Guy to the right: Hey man you typed in your password wrong.

Guy to the left: Thanks man- HEY WAIT HOW DO YOU KNOW!?-

Explanation: The guy on the right has been shoulder surfing their coworker for a while to the point where they’ve memorized their password. This can be very dangerous as if a bad actor gets to shoulder surf it can lead to them being hacked.

Meme: At our organization We have the best security tool money can buy!

The Security tool:

Explanation: Having a VPN while it can be helpful shouldn’t be the only security tool you have in an organization and it doesn’t guarantee 100% coverage of security.

Journal Entry 10:

Read this and write a journal entry summarizing your response to the article on social cybersecurity

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2451958825000831Links to an external site.

My Response:

Within this article, it addresses what it would take to address the protection of sensitive
data within the digital landscape from various cybercrimes through a social perspective. It
goes into the importance of detecting these social cyber related threats in a timely manner
to prevent as much harm as possible. One method is accessing the potential of public
datasets and tools that can help enhance this search for these crimes to further research
around the behavior and how to prevent it in the future. By going about it’s points the
article discusses the definition of social cybersecurity, its modern and historical
developments and how Social Cybersecurity is different from regular cybersecurity and it’s
value in learning it.

Journal Entry 11:

Watch this videoLinks to an external site..  As you watch the videohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYtmuHbhmS0Links to an external site.

, think about how the description of the cybersecurity analyst job relates to social behaviors.  Write a paragraph describing social themes that arise in the presentation.

My Response:

The Description of being a Cybersecurity Analyst relates greatly to many social behaviors
with many themes. One of which is the location in which a person might best be suited to
living in when pursuing a career, talking about certain locations being more affordable yet
less money vs more money with a higher cost of living. She also talked about the
competition within certain areas in pursuing a career as a cybersecurity analyst in a city
with a lot of college graduates will cause higher amounts of competition within those
candidates. The speaker also talked about the salary and the Job outlook in being what
employers were looking for and how much they’d pay.

Journal Entry 12: Read this https://dojmt.gov/wp-content/uploads/Glasswasherparts.com_.pdfLinks to an external site. sample breach letter “SAMPLE DATA BREACH NOTIFICATION” and describe how two different economics theories and two different psychological social sciences theories relate to the letter.

My Response:

Within the Data Breach described by the Company Grasswaterparts Many economic
theories and psychological social sciences theories relate to this example of notification
for a data breach. The couple I feel relate to this situation the most are Classical and
Laissez-Faire economic theories and Cognitive and Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory. My
reasoning for these theories is that for Cognitive it matches as from the description of the
intrusion it is that the perpetrators of the incident had great focus and perception in taking
select information from the third party that would benefit them. That benefit also comes to
reasoning behind why this incident also falls under the Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory as
the criminals went for the fastest and most reward driven goals being that of getting
names, credit and debit card numbers that would lead to that goal. For Economic theories
my reasoning for choosing Classical is that from this incident it is between the businesses
and the perpetrators with no government involvement shown and Laissez-Faire due to the
company responding to it’s incident according and addressing it to their customers.

Journal Entry 13: A later module addresses cybersecurity policy through a social science framework. At this point, attention can be drawn to one type of policy, known as bug bounty policies. These policies pay individuals for identifying vulnerabilities in a company’s cyber infrastructure.  To identify the vulnerabilities, ethical hackers are invited to try explore the cyber infrastructure using their penetration testing skills.  The policies relate to economics in that they are based on cost/benefits principles.  Read this article https://academic.oup.com/cybersecurity/article/7/1/tyab007/6168453?login=trueLinks to an external site.  and write a summary reaction to the use of the policies in your journal.  Focus primarily on the literature review and the discussion of the findings.

My Response:

From this article I can see a great value in implementing bug bounties within the
Cybersecurity space as a mainstream policy, maybe not as a single fix all but a part of
every evolving chain within the industry. They’d serve as a way for the defenders to look at
the errors within the code or exploit them from the perspective that someone working on
the code form the inside might not be aware of immediately. It gives hints at where an
attacker might be planning to strike in the future and it serves as a way to adapt to those
situations before an malicious attacker can exploit that weakness, lastly it can allow for
the company to have a vast amount of people searching for errors without having to
constantly paying them out to every one of them unless they find a bounty in question.

Journal Entry 14: Andriy Links to an external site.SlynchukLinks to an external site. Links to an external site.has described eleven things Internet users do that may be illegal. Review what the author says and write a paragraph describing the five most serious violations and why you think those offenses are serious.

My Response:

Andriy Slynchuk talks about 11 things that people do Online, some of which
are less obvious than others, Of the 5 I believe that are the most serious
violations are Collecting Information about children, Sharing Passwords,
addresses, or photos of others, recording a VoIP call without consent, Illegal
Searches on the internet, and Bullying and Trolling. My reasoning why
they’re the most serious violations come from the fact that some of these
illegal things come from the access or misuse of certain kinds of information
that could lead to something illegal, Like for sharing passwords, addresses,
or photos of others, recording a VoIP call without consent, Illegal Searches
on the internet and collecting information about children, or affect
someone’s mental and emotional state like in Bullying and Trolling but they
all have the effect of viewing or accessing data or information that can be
illegal or be misused for illegal purposes.

Journal Entry 15:

Dark Side of AI – How Hackers use AI & Deepfakes | Mark T. Hofmann |Links to an external site. TEDxAristideLinks to an external site.Demetriade Street

Watch this video and describe, What ethical questions did the presentation raise for you? How do you think society should address these ethical concerns?

My Response:

In the Dark Side of AI How Hackers use AI & Deepfakes, Mark T. Hofmann talks about the
dangers of AI and Deepfakes in the way that it can manipulate the truth for people who are
completely unaware to cause harm to themselves and others. Discussing how it can
manipulate the masses by stating something is true when it is not, altering faces and
voices to make people do things that a normal person didn’t do. He talks about how people
need to be aware of these tools and adapt around them while Cybersecurity professionals
will be excited on how things will change.