Self-Reflective Blog Post Journal — Week 6 Module 6: Cybersecurity Software and Hardware

This week’s blog post came late due to load-shedding in my area.

Module Impressions:

Although this week’s content was slightly longer than usual, it didn’t interrupt my study rhythm and was still in the range of the not-too-long, not-too-short content which I have come to enjoy. This week in the first half of the module, I learned about the cybersecurity products, such as the types of firewalls, IDPSs and various scanner and analysis tools. I was intrigued to learn more in-depth about the cybersecurity products that I use; I was unaware that there were various types of firewalls, until I learned about it in the first half.

The second half of the module was about access controls, the kinds of cryptography and Email security. This week’s assessment was another fun assessment quiz to work through.

In my previous studies, these topics such as cybersecurity products and cryptography were brought up, but I was not able to grasp them. However, upon learning these topics again, it has helped me to finally grasp them. For example, I learned about cryptography in my previous studies, but I didn’t understand them; now upon learning about cryptography again, it has helped me establish a link enough to finally grasp them.

To what degree does the usability and “user-friendliness” of software and hardware tools for cybersecurity affect their effectiveness?

The usability and “user-friendliness” of software and hardware tools are mostly automated; this encourages laziness because it requires no thought input from the user when the software and hardware does it for them. As such, this laziness prevents the full potential of software and hardware cybersecurity tools from being fully realized.

How could the usability factor of such tools affect the cybersecurity culture in an organisation?

Such a usability factor will encourage a lazy cybersecurity culture, because it will prevent basic technical knowledge from being gained.

Final Thoughts:

Another enjoyable module.