Michael Derosier

4/6/2024

Ethical Hackers and the Social Sciences

Ethical hackers are a very niche group of people who have the skills to hack into systems but do so for a good purpose. The whole point of ethical hacking is to test the strength of an organization’s cyber defense. Ethical hacking will allow the company to see their weaknesses and allow them to see where they need to focus on. Ethical hackers are a marginalized group of individuals, they commit crimes technically, but are allowed to do and not cause any harm. It is for the greater good of the company and the general population. Ethical hackers need to be able to think like criminals, they need to place themselves into a real hackers’ shoes and try and figure out how a criminal would look at the situation. If an ethical hacker cannot think like a criminal, then they will likely fail at properly figuring out how to discover an organization’s weak point. After all, the point is to discover the weak points so the organizations cyber team can fill the gaps to keep them safe from real cyber criminals!

Professionals in the ethical hacking field rely heavily on the social science of psychology. The social science of psychology can help them figure out the possible motive of a real hacker. Human behavior is a key concept in psychology that we talked about in class as well. Being able to understand human behavior can play a huge role within the ethical hacking community. It can give them more insight on how a cybercriminal thinks, thus allowing them to increase their ethical hacking skillsets. An article from UC Santa Cruz also suggests that understanding hackers is a great way to further protect ourselves from malicious cyber-attacks. “When we know how they think, their goals, and mindset, we can implement stronger security, make our online defenses stronger and be more alert to potential attacks. This can help us implement stronger security measures and be more aware of identifying possible adversaries.” (Isanaka, 2023). This means that ethical hackers can study and learn from human behaviors, their goals, and mindsets to help understand why an attack might happen. Even having the possibility of preventing attacks before they happen.

Ethical hacking professional’s daily routines directly relate to the course material learned in the class. The psychology social science plays a huge role. In class we learned about the different reasons why people hack including hacktivism and for political reasons. Some hackers even hack just because they think it is fun or for a thrill. Another factor that ethical hackers can consider is the study of victim behaviors. Victim behaviors show huge signs of mood instability which has also been directly linked to individuals performing more risky cyber security behaviors. This can be being more careless and not having good awareness, or it can also look like getting involved in criminal activities. Cybercrimes are on the rise globally. Damage and destruction of data, theft, embezzlement, and hacked data systems are continuing to increase (Chang, 2022). As is the number of psychological related illnesses caused by too much screen time, and victim behaviors.

According to a study, individuals over the age of 60 were accounted for the highest number of cybercrime victims with the United States (Petrosyan, 2024). This goes to show that cyber crimes can often be targeted at marginalized groups of people. This can tie back into psychology and human behaviors. If ethical hackers know that cyber criminals are likely to target certain groups, it can help them better protect our community and make the internet a safe place. Cybersecurity is a huge field that is constantly growing. Ethical hackers are just a small portion of the community, but they can create a huge difference within the world. Whether they are protecting an organization, learning new ways to hack, or studying human behavior to help predict attacks, they are continuing to make the internet a safer place for all of us. We will never be 100% free of threats unfortunately, but we can rest a little knowing ethical hackers are hard at work to help keep us safe.

References

Chang, S. (2022, March). Hacker types, motivations and strategies: A comprehensive framework. Retrieved from Science Direct: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245195882200001X

Isanaka, R. (2023, November 1). The Psychology of Hackers. Retrieved from UC Santa Cruz: https://its.ucsc.edu/news/psychology-of-hackers.html

Petrosyan, A. (2024, April 3). U.S. cyber crime victims 2023, by age. Retrieved from Statista: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1390164/us-victims-cyber-crime-by-age/#:~:text=In%202023%2C%20individuals%20over%20the,crimes%20in%20the%20year%20examined.