Patrick Scolyer-Gray

Patrick D. Scolyer-Gray (PhD) is an Australian sociologist and cybersecurity consultant.. Because of the inherently interdisciplinary nature of his career, Scolyer-Gray adopted the term ‘Cyber-Sociologist’ to refer to his profession. His work in the fields of online extremism and human factors in cybersecurity have attracted the attention of scholars, private industry as well as governments domestically and abroad.

Early life and education

Scolyer-Gray holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree in sociology and anthropology, as well as a PhD in Sociology from La Trobe University.

Scolyer-Gray received his PhD in 2019 for his mixed-methods ethnographic research into the notorious and fully anonymous online forum 4chan. His dissertation was entitled: “'Interpreting "Artistic Works of Fiction and Falsehood": A Sociological Analysis of the Production and Consumption of Knowledge on 4chan'”, and the manuscript was revised and adapted for publication as a book in 2022.

Career

Associate Lecturer

In 2019, Scolyer-Gray was an associate lecturer in cybersecurity at La Trobe University. During his time at La Trobe, he created and delivered the first iteration of the subject, ‘Human Factors in Cybersecurity’. The subject blended behavioral sciences with conventional cybersecurity insights, and was favorably received. Scolyer-Gray also continued to conduct research on matters related to 4chan and online extremism and co-authored a major OHPI publication.

Research Fellow

In 2020, Scolyer-Gray continued to develop his skills and reputation as an applied sociologist and sociotechnical specialist while working as a research fellow at Deakin University.

During his time at Deakin University, Scolyer-Gray was engaged in a wide range of research topics and contributed to numerous projects and publications. However, he primarily focused on matters related to the intersection between cybersecurity and decision-making, as well as information, cyber and hybrid warfare.

Scolyer-Gray’s most influential scholarly contributions during his time at Deakin stemmed from his critique of Australia’s National Digital Identification scheme, and his involvement in research that examined the cybersecurity and socio-cultural issues associated with post-mortem privacy.

Consultant

Scolyer-Gray left academia in late 2020 to seek out and pursue new opportunities to apply his skills as a cyber-sociologist for the purposes of engaging more directly with cybersecurity risks attributable to human vulnerabilities (e.g., human error, social engineering, insider threats etc.).

Scolyer-Gray is a vocal advocate of what he conceptualizes as “Human-Centric Cybersecurity” (HCCS). Leveraging his expertise and unique methodological and perceptual inclinations as a cyber-sociologist, Scolyer-Gray’s departure from academia overlapped with the start of a new role at the consulting company 460degrees.

In his current role at 460degrees: "Patrick delivers a range of cybersecurity projects… and provides thought leadership and advice to the team. He draws on behavioral and physical sciences to deliver holistic, comprehensive cyber solutions to his clients".

Human-Centric Cybersecurity (HCCS)

Scolyer-Gray has described HCCS as a ‘methodological framework’ in his written commentary as well as during interviews and speaking engagements. Overall, Scolyer-Gray’s work with HCCS has concentrated on:

• Finding a means of utilizing and optimizing existing cybersecurity infrastructure to avoid the negative consequences associated with continuously ‘updating’ and/or replacing systems.
• Increasing the extent to which people understand cybersecurity and are thus able to effectively interact with cybersecurity technologies.
• Increasing the extent to which people feel intrinsically motivated to invest energy in engaging in cyber secure behaviors.
• Cultivating a sense of individual responsibility for and personal ownership of cybersecurity outcomes.
• Refocusing cybersecurity strategies to concentrate on the empowerment of individuals instead of depending on technological defenses.
• Cultivating cultural structures that promote cyber secure behaviors and facilitate interpersonal relationships that reinforce the achievement, maintenance and continuous improvement of other HCCS objectives.
• Resolving technological, social, cultural and/or political obstacles to achieving an improved security posture.

Scolyer-Gray frequently draws on a metaphorical allegory he refers to as ‘the egg story’ as a means of explaining the core logic that underpins HCCS. According to Scolyer-Gray, an organization and its cybersecurity infrastructure can be compared (respectively) to the contents and shell of an egg. Scolyer-Gray argues that conventional cybersecurity architecture shares similar properties to an eggshell in the sense that both are inherently fragile and inescapably fallible. According to Scolyer-Gray, the common practice of adding “…layers of protection, constantly updating and investing in different methods to improve the protective properties of [an organization's] ‘eggshell’” is, therefore, an inefficient and ineffective method of improving an organization's cyber-resilience.

Scolyer-Gray argues that the layered approach to cybersecurity is fundamentally flawed because of its dependence on a defensive structure that, in much the same way as an eggshell, is unavoidably prone to compromise. Scolyer-Gray’s egg metaphor also highlights the similarities in the properties of an egg and an organization's digital assets. In a similar way that egg whites and yolk are vulnerable, dynamic and dependent on an eggshell for protection, the data of value to a cyber threat actor that is housed within an organization is easily extracted once the organization's ‘shell’ is breached. Scolyer-Gray argues that if the defensive affordances of an organization's ‘shell’ can not be improved, then improved cyber resilience must instead be driven by changes made to the ‘egg’s’ interior.

Specifically, Scolyer-Gray’s ‘egg story’ concludes with the argument that the fragility and lack of structural integrity that characterizes an egg can be resolved if the egg is 'hard boiled'. Scolyer-Gray argues that the HCCS methodological framework is designed to facilitate a transformation in the properties of an organization's staff and digital assets so that they become more cyber resilient at an individual level and as an interdependent whole: He argues that an organization that is ‘hard boiled’ becomes a significantly more difficult target for cyber threat actors which simultaneously reduces the chances of a cyber attack as well as the likelihood of an attack’s success.

Select Bibliography:

• Scolyer-Gray, P 2022, Artistic Works of Fiction and Falsehood : An Analysis of the Production and Consumption of Knowledge on 4chan, First edition, Patrick Scolyer-Gray, Melbourne, Victoria
• Scolyer-Gray, P 2019, “Interpreting ‘Artistic Works of Fiction and Falsehood’: A Sociological Analysis of The Production and Consumption of Knowledge on 4chan”, PhD thesis, La Trobe University, Bundoora.
• Scolyer-Gray, P 2022, It's the Culture: The Impact of Cyber Indifference on Cybersecurity, Security Brief Australia, https://securitybrief.com.au/story/it-s-the-culture-the-impact-of-cyber-indifference-on-cybersecurity.
• Oboler, A., Scolyer-Gray, P. and Allington, W., 2019. Hate and Violent Extremism from an Online Sub-Culture: The Yom Kippur terrorist attack in Halle, Germany. Online Hate Prevention Institute.
• Watters, P., Scolyer-Gray, P., Kayes, A. S. M., & Chowdhury, M. J. M. 2019, 'This would work perfectly if it weren’t for all the humans: Two factor authentication in late modern societies', First Monday.

See Also:

• Cyber-Sociology
• 4chan
• Online Extremism
• Human Factors
• Cybersecurity
• Social Engineering

External Links

Dr Patrick Scolyer-Gray - Publications Indexed by Google Scholar.

ORCID Profile - https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2402-3349 applied sociologists

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