Searching and Developing Cybersecurity Talent

Abstract

The lack of talent in the field of cybersecurity is keenly felt across all sectors of the economy - industry, government, military, academia [1]. While cybersecurity education has been a national priority, there still are thousands of cybersecurity jobs going unfilled and the gap will take a long time to close [1]. Of further concern, the authors have gathered anecdotal evidence that employers in both government and industry consider many recent cybersecurity graduates woefully unprepared for the realities of the workplace, taking too long to become effective. This paper describes one university's approach to address both the supply and preparedness problems, beginning with the application of the theory of pedagogical systems and methodology from sport and physical culture science and pedagogy to introducing the first iteration of a cooperative learning model - inspired by this theoretical base and experience with its application - designed specifically to develop and graduate ‘breach-ready' cybersecurity professionals.