How to Cite
Abstract
Professionalization of a cybersecurity workforce is under development from multiple perspectives. Government agencies, the military and academic institutions strive to standardize excellent curriculum and career pathways, certifications, job descriptions classifications are contributing to the effort. In its infancy is the development of statistically validated psychological profiles of candidates' possessing the talent, disposition and interest to excel in the rapidly maturing field and diversifying field of cybersecurity. To address this gap we propose to borrow from the well- established medical profession and utilize psychological profiling protocols tailoring a statistically validated career assessment tool to build cybersecurity psychological profiles of two markedly different cybersecurity career pathways. Once profiles are defined and validated we propose several Next Steps. Team members and industry partners comparing the psychological profiles can advise or refute a case to conduct additional profiling of additional cybersecurity career pathways. The assessment protocols and methodology will be disseminated to multiple communities at regional, national and international conferences to increase the diversity and numbers of talent entering the cybersecurity career pipeline.
Open Access License Notice:
This article is © its author(s) and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Beginning with Volume 13 (2026), this license is included directly within all published PDFs. For earlier articles, a cover page has been added to indicate the correct licensing terms. Any legacy copyright or pricing statements appearing within the PDF reflect prior print production workflows and do not represent the Journal’s current open access policy. For full details, please see the Journal’s License Terms.