TY - JOUR
T1 - Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities for Specialized Curricula in Cyber Defense
AU - Armstrong, Miriam E.
AU - Jones, Keith S.
AU - Namin, Akbar Siami
AU - Newton, David C.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 ACM.
PY - 2020/11
Y1 - 2020/11
N2 - More specialized cybersecurity education programs are needed to address workforce needs, but it is unclear which knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) fulfil industry needs. We interviewed 48 professionals within four cyber defense specialty areas: (1) Cyber Network Defense Analysis, (2) Cyber Network Defense Infrastructure Support, (3) Incident Response, and (4) Vulnerability Assessment and Management. The professionals rated a number of specialized KSAs along two dimensions: how important the KSA was to their job and how difficult the KSA was to learn. Overall, communication and other non-technical skills were rated as being very important for all cyber defense jobs. Findings indicated that, for some specialty areas, technical knowledge and skills vary considerably between jobs and so the ability to teach oneself is more valuable than proficiency in any one KSA. Findings may be used to inform the development of general cybersecurity curricula, as well as curricula that focus on Cyber Network Defense Analysis, Cyber Network Defense Infrastructure Support, or Vulnerability Assessment and Management.
AB - More specialized cybersecurity education programs are needed to address workforce needs, but it is unclear which knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) fulfil industry needs. We interviewed 48 professionals within four cyber defense specialty areas: (1) Cyber Network Defense Analysis, (2) Cyber Network Defense Infrastructure Support, (3) Incident Response, and (4) Vulnerability Assessment and Management. The professionals rated a number of specialized KSAs along two dimensions: how important the KSA was to their job and how difficult the KSA was to learn. Overall, communication and other non-technical skills were rated as being very important for all cyber defense jobs. Findings indicated that, for some specialty areas, technical knowledge and skills vary considerably between jobs and so the ability to teach oneself is more valuable than proficiency in any one KSA. Findings may be used to inform the development of general cybersecurity curricula, as well as curricula that focus on Cyber Network Defense Analysis, Cyber Network Defense Infrastructure Support, or Vulnerability Assessment and Management.
KW - Cyber-defense
KW - NICE cybersecurity workforce framework
KW - curricula development
KW - cybersecurity education
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85097218373&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3421254
DO - 10.1145/3421254
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85097218373
SN - 1946-6226
VL - 20
JO - ACM Transactions on Computing Education
JF - ACM Transactions on Computing Education
IS - 4
M1 - 29
ER -