Select four other majors offered by ODU and explain how those majors relate to cybersecurity.

Cybersecurity is no longer considered an independent field but an interdisciplinary one, with many subjects intersecting the world of strategic protections of networks and computer systems. Old Dominion University has realized the need for an interdisciplinary study of cybersecurity and highly encourages its students to take part in investigating the realm beyond the regular study of the field by offering a tremendous number of majors, such as Computer Engineering, Psychology, Sociology, and Criminal Justice, that when taken and viewed through the lens of cybersecurity, provide a unique and more realistic study of the subject as well as unique job opportunities.

On top of the natural problem-solving skills students acquire when studying Computer Engineering, the study provides a deeper understanding of the technical aspects of computer hardware. As a result, a student studying Computer Engineering can combine their newfound knowledge of developing and maintaining secure hardware and cybersecurity to prevent hackers from obtaining system access through multi-faceted approaches such as tampering with physical devices.

Both the study of Psychology and Sociology can be applied to understand the deeper side of cybersecurity by predicting the human behavior and decision-making of both hackers, who try to obtain inappropriate access to systems, as well as the behavior of the analysts trying to prevent that access. For example, understanding Psychology can help an enterprise cybersecurity analyst understand why an individual user would be more drawn to certain phishing emails or be more likely to give up their password as an unsuspecting victim of a spam call. Sociologists can use their understanding of the concepts of human behavior and how the social systems around them influence it. By using their knowledge of certain societal constructs, such as social class, they can understand how and why a group of impoverished citizens may be more likely to engage in criminal behavior and rely on the financial opportunities presented by hacking than a group of individuals with more considerable sums of wealth available would.

With society becoming more and more technology-dependent, there has been a sharp increase in cybercrime. Students who undertake a Criminal Justice major can use their knowledge of current cyber law, forensics, and criminology to understand how crimes are committed using computer systems and work with law enforcement to analyze them and take offenders to justice.