Cybersecurity Competitions: The Human Angle

Bashir, Masooda; Lambert, April; Guo, Boyi; Memon, Nasir; Halevi, Tzipora

doi:10.1109/msp.2015.100

Cited by 9 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Cybersecurity competitions have been documented and studied in academic research over the last decade, with numerous publications on building competitions, reviewing the learning outcomes, and surveying participants. Past work explored CTFs (such as PicoCTF, DEFCON, and CSAW) (Zhang et al, 2013;Cowan et al, 2003;Bashir et al, 2015) and cyber defense competitions (such as CDX, CPTC, and CyberPatriot) (Dodge & Ragsdale, 2004;White et al, 2010), many designed for the collegiate level of play (Chu et al, 2007).…”

Section: Cybersecurity Competitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cybercompetitions: A survey of competitions, tools, and systems to support cybersecurity education

Balon

Baggili

2023

Educ Inf Technol

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Over the last decade, industry and academia have worked towards raising students' interests in cybersecurity through game-like competitions to fill a shortfall of cybersecurity professionals. Rising interest in video games in combination with gamification techniques make learning fun, easy, and addictive. It is crucial that cybersecurity curricula enhance and expose cybersecurity education to a diversified student body to meet workforce demands. Gamification through cybercompetitions is one method to achieve that. With a vast list of options for competition type, focus areas, learning outcomes, and participant experience levels we need to systematize knowledge of attributes that ameliorate cybercompetitions. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and global lock-downs, competition hosts scrambled to move platforms from local to online infrastructure due to poor interoperability between competition software. We derive a list of takeaways including the lack of interoperability between state-of-the-art competition systems, breaking the high knowledge barrier to participate, addressing competition type diversity, then suggest potential solutions and research questions moving forward. Our paper aims to systematize cybersecurity, access control, and programming competitions by surveying the history of these events. We explore the types of competitions that have been hosted and categorize them based on focus areas related to the InfoSEC Color Wheel. We then explore state-of-the-art technologies that enable these types of competitions, and finally, present our takeaways.

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Section: Cybersecurity Competitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cybercompetitions: A survey of competitions, tools, and systems to support cybersecurity education

Balon

Baggili

2023

Educ Inf Technol

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“…Specifically for the new talent attraction, cyber competitions or exercises (such as Capture the Flags (CTFs)) organized by universities or non-profit organizations are considered as effective ways. While the competitions positively influence future career intents, they are designed for targeting high schoolers and those undecided undergraduate and graduate students (Bashir et al, 2015). Recently, both high school and college level students have become increasingly interested in studying cybersecurity; therefore, educational institutions also design introductory courses and seminars to expand the students' knowledge of cybersecurity (Triplett, 2023).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching pentesting to social sciences students using experiential learning techniques to improve attitudes towards possible cybersecurity careers

Melnikovas

Lugo

Maennel

et al. 2023

eccws

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Labor market analysis shows that there is a significant shortage of experienced cybersecurity professionals, and this trend is expected to continue in the future. In addition, young people who are reluctant to choose STEM subjects in school typically do not see cybersecurity as a part of their future because they believe it demands exclusive technical knowledge that is beyond their reach. We aimed to change this perception among students of the social sciences, assuming that by providing social science students with the basics of cybersecurity, it would be possible to raise their awareness and encourage them to consider this field as a potential career option. Our team has designed a concise technical course based on Kolb's model that employs experiential learning to provide students with a basic knowledge of ethical intrusion (penetration testing). During the 32-hour subject, cadet officers with no prior IT education experienced all the steps of hacking both into a remotely accessible and physically accessible computer, including initial reconnaissance, vulnerability scanning, exploitation, and privilege escalation. A hands-on practical task of breaking into a highly vulnerable remote computer allowed for the evaluation of knowledge and skills as well as the reinforcement of learning experiences. In order to assess how the students' perceptions of the cybersecurity profession have changed based on the theory of planned behavior, they were asked to provide feedback immediately after the course and one year later. The results indicate that the short, technically challenging, but practical course based on experiential learning had a significant and positive effect on participants' attitudes: they were substantially more likely to consider cybersecurity as a future career, and some of them began participating in other cybersecurity courses or activities. It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that providing similar technical courses to social science students will encourage them to pursue cybersecurity-related careers in the future.

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“…Studies have considered the use of puzzles [11] and challenges [12] to aid learning. Significant interest has been paid to competitions [13]- [16] and the students that participate in them [17]. A limited amount of prior work [18] has also been conducted related to undergraduate research activities in cybersecurity and the benefits they produce.…”

Section: Cybersecuritymentioning

confidence: 99%

Experiential Research Education: A Report on the First Year of an NSF-sponsored Cyber-physical System Cybersecurity Research Experience for Undergraduates Program

Straub¹

2019 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

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He holds a Ph.D. in Scientific Computing, an M.S. and an M.B.A. and has published over 40 journal articles and over 120 full conference papers, in addition to making numerous other conference presentations. Straub's research spans the gauntlet between technology, commercialization and technology policy. In particular, his research has recently focused on cybersecurity topics including intrusion detection and forensics, robotic command and control, aerospace command and 3D printing quality assurance. Straub is a member of Sigma Xi, the AAAS, the AIAA and several other technical societies, he has also served as a track or session chair for numerous conferences.

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Cybersecurity Competitions: The Human Angle

Cited by 9 publications

References 3 publications

Cybercompetitions: A survey of competitions, tools, and systems to support cybersecurity education

Cybercompetitions: A survey of competitions, tools, and systems to support cybersecurity education

Teaching pentesting to social sciences students using experiential learning techniques to improve attitudes towards possible cybersecurity careers

Experiential Research Education: A Report on the First Year of an NSF-sponsored Cyber-physical System Cybersecurity Research Experience for Undergraduates Program

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