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Programming in Cybersecurity - The use of Object-oriented Programming
LikeCybersecurity experts are required to understand programming concepts to be able to comprehend and interpret cyber activities that might be malicious on the network. Attackers might decide to gain access to data to steal information or alter the data.
A question most cyber experts might ask is "What programming language do I learn?" One popular and easiest programming language to learn is Python programming language which is an object-oriented programming (OOP) i.e. it relies on the use of classes and objects. With Python, you will be able to reuse existing code or already defined functions in writing your own program. Other programming languages that could be considered in cybersecurity include C++, C or Java.
Python programming language can be used to write code that manipulates data. As python is Object-oriented, we will be able to break down a complex problem into smaller problems which are resolved with smaller sub-functions of the proposed code solution. A class is used as a template to enable us to generate objects (instances of a class). Objects consist of data and code which are represented as attributes and methods/functions respectively.
After identifying a problem to be solved, it is expected to also identify the relevant objects that relates to the problem. For example, considering a problem of securing messages; objects such as Message and Encryption will be relevant in the code solution. Attributes for the Message and Encryption objects might include "textMessage" and "key" respectively. Note that objects will represent the classes to be written as templates to generate their various objects that are distinct based on their attribute value.
