Diversifying cybersecurity education: A non-technical approach to technical studies

Abstract

Cybersecurity education does not only confine to the technical studies embodying network security, malware analysis and reverse reengineering, application security, and operating systems security. The increasing numbers of Cyberterrorism and incidents of hacktivism suggest that Cybersecurity pertains to politics, religion, and culture. Drawing on globalization shaped by the economic, legal, political, religion, and social dimensions, extant literature discloses that infusing social science, cultural and political studies into Cybersecurity education could better prepare students for the job market by making students realize the complexity in the real world. This study presents the efforts of integrating cultural, social, and political dimensions into the Cybersecurity curriculum in a public, regional university in the Midwest of the United States. In particular, this study presents the approaches of introducing intelligence analysis coursework that requires students to understand the analysis of competing hypotheses for drawing conclusion related to the possible Cyberattack from a foreign nation, identify the cultural differences across nations for comprehending the hacking motivation of a different nation, and recognize individual's cognitive and cultural biases during the process of evaluating a cultural event.