The Problem

With innovation comes...

the ever increasing complexity of technology. With the gap between human capabilities and our capabilities always changing, so does the complexity with respect to these technological advancements.

With innovation comes the potential threat from malicious innovation and with such, the need to persistently analyze and assess technologies in use and their vulnerabilities. This necessity comes with a cost; a cost to educators, administrators, and any beneficiary of technological advancements. The decision to commit to security is an easy one, the implementation of such is where the cost is incurred. These costs come in various forms such as; money, time, stress, and ultimately with the span of use of technology, lives.

To approach this problem has to begin by considering the challenges faced by each participant, including ourselves. An individual doesn’t wish for additional burdensome tasks to meet the requirements to own a device. Nor would a business wish to be individually responsible for all activity in cyberspace across the globe. While educators may gladly step forward to teach the importance of cyber security and cyber hygiene, this would come with an understanding of the current level of the preoccupation of their students, especially those that aren’t cyber-oriented. We, as individuals, wish to live our lives without pushing our stress thresholds to an area of knowledge in which we have both little traction nor interest.

By surveying out our landscapes we began to understand how to move across them and by the same principle, we can both understand and participate in this landscape of innovation. To make education available and scalable to relevance and interest in whichever socio-demographic region one may reside. To provide the canvases and tools through which a landscape cannot just simply be designed but continuously updated. As well as to generate a medium through which all participants in this inter-network of technologies can find comfort to move through. Which can be structured on foundational and easily understood principles delivered, not burdensome, but with energy! Principles that then can scale throughout the differing topologies of professions in the modern age. This is The Cyber Atlas!

The Design Thinking Process

Innovation is for everyone and as we developed our design, we kept this in mind. Appealing to the challenges faced by everyone with the hope of providing a better quality of life. Concerning our data set sources for the up to date threat landscape analysis, it could only be through a wide breadth collaboration intent on deliberating potentially highly sensitive information to communicate across sectors to implement vulnerability assessment and solutions. This being at the core of our design, what can be drawn from this information to introduce better practices to individuals of all ages and level of internet activity? How can it be delivered? How can we relate this to not only individuals, but between departments in an organization and, furthermore, organizations? By abstraction of what is the source of our difficulties, we can begin to design a solution that meets the criteria.

Building Empathy

To better understand the problem, we conducted a series of interviews with individuals from multiple professions. During this process we had yet to fully understand the question. By directly interacting with these individuals we were able to build a better understanding of what points were highlighted across sectors, and which were local to a particular position in the hierarchy.

Occupation: Data Librarian, Virginia Beach Public Libraries

“Cyber Security is a field that misses the forest for the trees. Concentration seems to be on minute/specific threats rather than on the overall security picture. Cyber threats are just one part.”

Occupation: Banking Officer

“Working in the financial industry has made them skeptic of Cyber Security. Says criminals are always one step ahead.”

Occupation: Retail Worker

“Cyber Security is intimidating and the information for good practices is inaccessible.”

Occupation: Community Relations

“It’s like driving. Driving in a fast and reckless manner will likely cause an accident and getting in an accident will make you later to your destination. Their method can cause slowdowns; it can also be tedious; some coworkers in different departments have different security policies. There seems to be a slight disconnect between the IT team and users. For example, with phone security, the phones are extremely locked down and it’s hard for me to use. This poses an issue since my job is in community relations and communication.”

Occupation: City Water Security and Emergency Management

“It is impossible to keep up to patches 100% of the time because of the resources required, the constant roll out of patches, and the time it takes. As well as relying on 3rd party vendors for patches.”

Occupation: Visual Designer

“We use Macs, and the cyber hygiene systems were built for PCs. Thus, we run into issues sometimes when it comes into updating passwords and a few other things. For example, we’ve gotten kicked out of our computer during meetings. The methods pose issues when there is time sensitive work to be completed.”

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