What Should Cybersecurity Students Learn in School?
Keith S. Jones, Akbar Siami Namin, Miriam E. Armstrong · 2017
There is a job gap in cybersecurity with many more security jobs than qualified candidates. The cybersecurity workforce shortage could be mitigated by developing better curricula that prioritize the Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs) most important to security related jobs. To determine which KSAs should be included in cybersecurity education and training, we administered survey-interviews to 44 security professionals at the premier hacking conferences Black Hat and DEF CON. Questions concerned 32 cybersecurity-relevant KSAs. Participants were asked how important each KSA was to their job and where they had learned that KSA. Fifteen KSAs were rated as being of higher-than-neutral importance. Most of these important KSAs concerned networks (example KSA: knowledge of network protocols) and threats/vulnerabilities (example KSA: knowledge of types of security threats and vulnerabilities). Of the 32 KSAs, participants learned the most about 31 of them while on the job and not through formal training. Overall, the data suggest that network KSAs and threat and vulnerability KSAs should be prioritized in course curricula and that historically threat and vulnerability KSAs have not been emphasized in school. This work is supported by National Science Foundation under award number DGE-1516636.