Cyber Terrorism on the Critical Infrastructure of the U.S
Discuss the methodological approach you have chosen for your study. Explain why you chose the approach. Specify the tasks you have completed or plan to undertake in your research.
The aim of this research is to explore the implications of cyber-terrorism on US infrastructure. It focuses on the major attributes of cyber-terrorism. The research is investigative in nature. Exploratory research is a type of research design conducted when researchers lacks a clear idea of the problems. It draws conclusions only with extreme prudence. It also, helps determine the best research design, data collection method and selection of subjects. The aim of exploratory research is to discover ideas, concepts, insights, generate possible explanations and hypothesis. The qualitative data to be collected will be used to give in-depth explanations, and such data will be obtained using interview based techniques
Qualitative research in designed for this study because identification and construction of empirical models to be used in describing circumstances linking to the use of attributes or defining characteristics, which a person can only obtain by conducting qualitative research. In addition, it will allow the researcher to discover theoretical ideas that can be used for investigation purposes. In order to obtain qualitative data, the research will be developed from semi-structured interviews, and for the purpose of clarification, the research may return to the interviews with different sets of questions.
The study will follow the general principles of interview beginning with clear identification of objectives, research questions and purpose and a thesis statement. These elements will be used to generate data and relevant information, which the researcher will use as focused points of discussions through conversational approaches. However, the interviews will retain higher degrees of freedom and adaptability to the sets of questions asked by the researcher.
A sample of 22 respondents will be used during the study. The interviewees will be required to respond to the set of questions based on their views and, or personal experiences.
- Discuss the practical value of your research. Identify the targeted audience. Specify the criteria the audience could use to evaluate your study.
The proposed research will valuable in a number of ways. For example, study will highlight a number of issues involved with cyber-terrorism such analysis of the vulnerability of the US Critical Infrastructures to cyber-attacks, detecting and preventing cyber-attacks, and challenges the Government faces in its bid to thwart cyber terrorism , which will be useful to the Homeland Security and Counter-Terrorism Unit in the U.S. The findings of the research will be useful to security agents, as it will provide them with information related to cyber-terrorism. To policy makers, the findings could be used when enacting measures to counter cyber-terrorism.
- 3. Discuss the types of evidence a researcher should seek when testing causal hypotheses. Explain each evidence in the context of your study.
Casual hypothesis testing is used to predict a cause-and-effect relationship within the data. The researcher will use evidence from respondents and literature review to test the hypothesis. The source of evidence will be such as elements of cyber terrorism, instances of Information Warfare, implications of Information Warfare and the essence of protecting national infrastructure from cyber terrorism.
- 4. Describe the data collection method you have applied or plan to use in your study. List the steps involved in the data collection effort and state what you plan to accomplish in each step. Discuss the strengths and limitations of the data collection method.
Data collection will consist of two parts: (1) the theoretical; (2) the empirical part. The theoretical part relies on secondary data collection. The empirical part is based on primary data collection. Secondary data is composed of data, which is already in existence, and were collected for some other intention but it could be used for a second time such as in this project. Secondary data comes from different sources such as books, articles, journals, internet, reports, theses, and archives among other sources. The use of secondary data is to supplement data collected via primary data collection.
For secondary literature review, some carefully selected online library databases will be the mainstream and most critical and major parts of this report. The focus of researcher is to present reliable, authentic, and useful information; therefore, online library databases with dependable journals and articles information will be included as secondary research analysis contribution.
Data is to be collected through the administration of semi-structured interviews with different sets of questions. After the questions have been structured, the interviewer will collect data in a small study sample of between 22 respondents. The interviewees will be required to respond to the set of questions based on their views and, or personal experiences.
- All the 22 respondents will be contacted in advance and explain them the goal of the interview,
- Next will be to obtain his/her permission
- Then the researcher will schedule an appointment and agree on where the interview will be held.
- It is imperative to note that the place selected will be neutral, confidential, comfortable, quiet, free of distractions, as well as easily accessible for the respondent.
- An equipment of recording the interview will also be used.
- All the conversations and interviews will be tape-recorded
- The research will handle every interviewee with the highest level of dignity deserve
- The information presented by the respondents will be used to classify the country’s working organizations and the overall information infrastructure and this means that t. After data collection, analysis will follow the guidelines theory.
Limitation and Strengths
Semi-structured interviews are justifiable because they are cheap, time saving and allow the researcher to collect first-hand information. Based on this observation, the researcher was in a position to incur less financial costs. For example, interviews carried via email are cheap compared to phone or face-to-face interviews. One of the other major advantages of this technique is that, it is ‘semi-structured’ by nature. That is, closed and open-ended questions are included, along with discretion to interviewer to make flexible additions of questions at times of interview procedure, if required.
In addition, the use of semi-structured interviews is appropriate because it will allow the researcher to have the questions prepared ahead of time. This will allow the interviewer to be prepared and appear competent during the interview. It will also allow respondents on the freedom to express their views in their own terms. Lastly, semi-structure interviews can provide reliable, comparable qualitative data
Disadvantages
- Interviewing skills are needed
- Prior preparation must be carefully planned to ensure that questions are not prescriptive or leading.
- Need to meet sufficient people in order to make general comparisons
- Time consuming and resource intensive
- Skills to analyze the data collected can be problematic and time consuming
- The researcher has to ensure confidentiality.
- Select any of the literature you have reviewed and then answer the following questions:
- What is the main research problem or question investigated by the researcher? State the problem or question in one or two sentences.
This research proposal seeks to analyze three main areas that constitute; cyber-crime control, prevention, and investigations toward protection of the USA Critical Infrastructures.
- What is the research methodology used by the researcher? List the steps the researcher went through to investigate the problem or question.
The researcher will use qualitative research methodology. Qualitative research in designed for this study because identification and construction of empirical models to be used in describing circumstances linking to the use of attributes or defining characteristics, which a person can only obtain by conducting qualitative research. Qualitative approach is designed for this study since it will allow the researcher to discover theoretical ideas that can be used for investigation purposes. In order to obtain qualitative data, the research will be developed from semi-structured interviews, and for the purpose of clarification, the research may return to the interviews with different sets of questions.
- What is the conclusion the researcher reached about the research problem or question?
It is clearly seen from our research proposal that, cyber-terrorism is a major insecurity factor that has been a threat to the US critical infrastructure. Hence, there is a need to curb the vice and put mechanisms in place to combat any loopholes that may lead to the same. Some challenges experienced in dealing with cyber-terrorism are the environmental complexity, introduction of new technologies, new cyber threats, and limited focus and budgetary allocations for security agencies.