Building Cybersecurity Mindset Through Continuous Cross-Module Learning

Recent years have witnessed a strong demand for cybersecurity professionals, especially considering the remarkable projected growth rate of cybersecurity positions for the next ten years. Filling such a workforce demand is not simply preparing dedicated cybersecurity students. More importantly, it is essential to establish a cybersecurity mindset for computer science students in general, because they will contribute to the majority of the cybersecurity-related workforce in the near future. This project aims to promote cybersecurity education for undergraduate computer science students in general and prepare a future cybersecurity workforce. Instead of heavily relying on dedicated cybersecurity courses in most existing undergraduate cybersecurity education, this project proposes the concept of cross-module learning that leverages non-cybersecurity computer sciences courses at different levels to continuously instill security concepts and skills to train students from the early stage of undergraduate learning. To enable effective cross-module learning, we identify appropriate computer science courses to integrate cybersecurity modules, investigate effective integration strategies, and explore potential linkages among different courses and modules.