{"id":70,"date":"2025-11-17T19:47:58","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T19:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/student.wp.odu.edu\/bteag001\/?p=70"},"modified":"2025-11-17T19:47:58","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T19:47:58","slug":"career-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/student.wp.odu.edu\/bteag001\/2025\/11\/17\/career-paper\/","title":{"rendered":"Career Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Social Engineering Analyst: Applying Social Science in Cybersecurity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Student Name: Brandon Teague<\/p>\n\n\n\n

School of Cybersecurity, Old Dominion University<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CYSE 201S: Cybersecurity and the Social Sciences<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instructor Name: Diwakar Yalpi<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Date: November 16, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cybersecurity used to be more about computers, servers and firewalls. But today, the biggest problems aren’t with technology, they are with us, the people. The field has changed to focus heavily on human behavior. The job of a Social Engineering Analyst is the best example of this shift. This professional is a specialist in finding, evaluating, and stopping attacks that trick people into giving away secret information or access (Singh, 2025). Instead of breaking into a network, they “hack the human.” Because of this, their daily work is completely tied to social science research. This paper explains how Social Engineering Analysts use ideas from psychology and sociology in their jobs, focusing on their responsibilities toward marginalized groups and the rest of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main job of a Social Engineering Analyst is built on social psychology and cognitive psychology. Their goal is to understand how criminals trick people so they can teach others how to avoid those tricks. Bad guys who use social engineering often rely on basic human tendencies, using principles first discovered by social science researchers. For instance, the famous psychologist Robert Cialdini identified six principles of persuasion\u2014like Authority (obeying a boss), Scarcity (acting fast so you don\u2019t miss out), and Liking (trusting someone friendly)\u2014that are the exact tools criminals use in attacks like phishing (Cialdini, 2021). An analyst must know these rules backward and forward to create effective defenses. They might use a fake email that seems to come from a company’s CEO to see how many employees fall for the Authority bias (Brinkhof, 2024). They create urgency in their practice attacks to train staff to slow down and think instead of reacting to pressure. This shifts security from watching the network to watching the human, making social science the absolute most important tool in their technical job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond understanding persuasion, an analyst’s daily tasks\u2014checking for weaknesses, building training programs, and running ethical phishing tests\u2014are all direct applications of social science concepts we learn in class. In designing training, analysts must deal with the “knowing-doing gap.” This is a key idea in behavioral science that explains why people often know the right thing to do (“don’t click on that link”) but do the wrong thing when stressed or busy (Singh, 2025). To fix this, analysts use principles of learning and behavior to create hands-on training, fake phishing campaigns, and security games. These methods have proven to change behavior better than simply handing out a list of rules (Aldawood & Skinner, 2018). By ethically copying the psychological signals that criminals use (such as urgency or fear), they can collect data on human weaknesses and use it to refine security policies. This regular use of social science allows them to measure and reduce human risk, which, according to IBM, is the cause of nearly all cybersecurity problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The work of the Social Engineering Analyst has major ethical consequences for society, especially for marginalized groups. Analysts must consider sociological inequality to make sure their security rules and training are fair to everyone. Groups that are often overlooked face greater risks in the digital world. This is because they may not have updated devices, have lower digital skills, or are simply targeted more often for financial fraud (Carnegie Endowment, 2023). For instance, security training made only by people who work in tech might miss things. It might not work for people with disabilities, those who speak a different language, or households that must share one phone (Mitnick & Simon, 2023). A good Social Engineering Analyst uses socioeconomic research to make sure that security warnings are easy for people with disabilities to understand and that procedures work for people with all levels of tech knowledge. Furthermore, they help protect society by defending important systems, like banks and hospitals from attacks that would hurt vulnerable people the most. Their ethical duty is to ensure that their defensive work doesn’t accidentally favor one group or unfairly target others, making the digital world safer and fairer for everyone (Brinkhof, 2024).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The job of the Social Engineering Analyst clearly shows that security success comes down to solving human problems, not just tech problems. These experts depend on social science ideas, from understanding what persuades people to knowing the challenges facing marginalized communities. This helps to build stronger, fair defenses. By using concepts like the Authority bias and the knowing-doing gap in their daily training, they close the gap between human behavior and technology. Since cyber threats will always try to exploit the “human element,” the Social Engineering Analyst, using social science insights, is a critical role in safeguarding individuals and society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aldawood, H., & Skinner, G. (2018). Educating and raising awareness on cyber security social engineering: A literature review. Journal of Information Security and Applications<\/em>, 330293734.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brinkhof, D. (2024). Social Engineering Analyst: Applying Social Science in Cybersecurity<\/em>. ODU University Sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. (2023). Cyber Resilience Must Focus On Marginalized Individuals, Not Just Institutions<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cialdini, R. B. (2021). Influence, New and Expanded: The Psychology of Persuasion<\/em>. Harper Business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mitnick, K., & Simon, W. L. (2023). The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security<\/em>. Wiley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Singh, T. (2025). Daily Responsibilities and Social Science Applications in Security<\/em>. Unpublished manuscript, Old Dominion University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Social Engineering Analyst: Applying Social Science in Cybersecurity Student Name: Brandon Teague School of Cybersecurity, Old Dominion University CYSE 201S: Cybersecurity and the Social Sciences Instructor Name: Diwakar Yalpi Date: November 16, 2025 Cybersecurity used to be more about computers,… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wds_primary_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/student.wp.odu.edu\/bteag001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/student.wp.odu.edu\/bteag001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/student.wp.odu.edu\/bteag001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/student.wp.odu.edu\/bteag001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/student.wp.odu.edu\/bteag001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/student.wp.odu.edu\/bteag001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71,"href":"https:\/\/student.wp.odu.edu\/bteag001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/student.wp.odu.edu\/bteag001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/student.wp.odu.edu\/bteag001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/student.wp.odu.edu\/bteag001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}