1. How do engineers make cyber networks safer?

It’s no surprise that faulty software often leaves networks vulnerable to malware, spyware, adware, phishing and more. A security engineer analyzes computer networks, ensures they’re running securely, and tries to foresee possible security issues that may arise in the future. In short, security engineering focuses on designing computer systems equipped to deal with disruptions like natural disasters and/or malicious cyber attacks. Cyber security engineers perform assessments and penetration testing; provide development and implementation of secure network solutions by architecting and engineering trusted systems into secure systems, and manage audit/intrusion and security technology systems. Cyber security engineers must be able to troubleshoot, identify unauthorized access, and offer solutions regarding an organization’s systems and networks related to cyber security. In this position, they’ll perform very detailed work at the forefront of information protection efforts for the organization. It is their training, skills, experience, and education that stand between the organization for which you work and threats and breaches, like unauthorized access to data and information or intrusion into your organization’s systems. Cyber security engineers may also be known as IT security engineers, application security engineers, web security engineers, or data security engineers. Whatever the title, they will also be responsible for collaborating with other departments to establish security protocols and protect IT systems .

2. What is the overlap between criminal justice and cybercrime? How does this overlap relate to the other disciplines discussed in this class?

I believe the overlap with criminal justice and cybercrime will only continue to grow as time goes on. In todays world crime is becoming more and more regular to be committed online rather than in person. This trend means it is impossible for cybercrime and criminal justice to not overlap. One popular example of how cyber crime and criminal justice overlap is the dark web. On the darkweb it is common for people to steal and sell identities or credit cards. This is still against the law and is punishable with jail time even though it isn’t a face to face crime. These crimes are becoming more and more popular because it is harder to get caught. Cyber crimes do also happen with physical evidence such as hard drives or computers. One example would be if someone where to gain unauthorized access to a persons computer and download the iinformation to a hard drive. That hard drive would be considered stolen goods and would be the same as stealing a physical item in court. Cyber crime and criminal justice overlap is very similar to when we read about black hats. Black hats are illegal hackers which steal information from companies or individuals. Blackhats if caught are charged in court and can get jail time even though they committed the crime through the web. This overlap can be related to the reading about crimes and how criminal justice programs in the country don’t involve cyber security in their curriculum even though more and more crimes are being committed online. I believe in the future more colleges across the country will involve cyber security in their curriculum due to crimes increasing on the web. Overall I believe cyber security and criminal justice will continue to overlap more and more as time goes on.