Curriculum Development for Teaching Cybersecurity of Industrial Control Systems & Critical Infrastructure

Abstract

It is well-established in academic and professional circles that there currently exists a knowledge/skill gap between engineers and IT/Cybersecurity professionals with respect to protecting the nation’s Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and Critical Infrastructure (CI) from cyber threats and attacks. This paper documents relevant work and outlines a roadmap for developing a curriculum for a Graduate Certificate as part of the effort to bridge this gap. Given the complex, cross-sector dependencies and interdependencies of ICS and CI, this paper adopts a multidisciplinary approach to developing the proposed Curriculum. To this end, the curriculum augments existing courses in Cybersecurity and Engineering Technology and creates new ones for meeting sector-specific learning outcomes & objectives. Overall, the paper and the proposed curriculum hold the promise of contributing to the ongoing effort to bridge the knowledge/skill gap by educating the future engineering and security workforce on protecting the ICS and CI from cybersecurity threats and attacks.