Week 12 - Wrapping it up

In my introductory blog from August 26, 2014 I stated that I wanted to focus my blog entries on security topics related to the electronic payments industry.  This was a stretch to get to several weeks and combine this with the class topic covered for the week, but this also helped me to relate each topic covered to my daily activities.  At the beginning I wanted to make an effort to use different sources as much as possible over the 11 weeks of this blog, but looking back I was not successful at this.  But I also realized this at the time as searching through different sources did not locate information I was looking for.  One source consistently had information that fit into the story I wanted to tell.  Breaking down my sources shows that I used:

5/11 posts - 45% - SecurityWeek
2/11 posts - 18% - c|net
1/11 posts - 9% - FBI Cybercrime
1/11 posts - 9% - ISACA Knowledge Center
1/11 posts - 9% - NIST
1/11 posts - 9% - SANS Internet storm center

In the case of the material I covered and the area of interest I was confining myself to, SecurityWeek met my requirements the most of the time, but only once for two weeks in a row.

Regarding the topics selected, the category with the most coverage was weaknesses that could be exploited by nefarious means.  This could be though bugs or failure to protect an area of an application or operating system.  However, there was more diversity in the categories than in the sources used as information about the people involved in security decisions and the processes used were also discussed.

The main advantage I see to using the blog format for writing about security, or really any subject, is the lower level of formality that this format allows.  While this is not a scholarly method of publication, it does encourage the use of references to back up the discussion and the conclusions drawn.  But it also allows more personal opinion to be expressed in the first person than would be acceptable using other methods generally used for academic papers.  I have never written a blog prior to this, and may not in the future, but I am glad to have had this experience so I know what it is like.  Writing is something I’ve learned to re-enjoy since entering graduate school after a 23 year hiatus from scholarly pursuits.  It is now no longer a chore to put together a 400 - 500 word discussion of a subject and feel like I’ve both learned something and been able to share what I’ve learned with an audience.  If I find that I have information that I want to share with a wide audience, the blog will now be a method I will consider using.