Mastering the cyber security skills crisis: realigning educational outcomes to industry requirements

The cyber security skills crisis is a key policy issue in many countries, and governments look in part to universities to address it. This paper addresses one narrow question to see how it speaks to the broader challenges: are current Master of Cyber Security programs in Australia preparing students for the workforce? This research flags a new direction for further, much needed research rather than claim to be an exhaustive analysis. The paper concludes that the requirement for purpose-driven and mission-specific cyber security education is increasing and recommends that this become a...  [+] Show more

The cyber security skills crisis is a key policy issue in many countries, and governments look in part to universities to address it. This paper addresses one narrow question to see how it speaks to the broader challenges: are current Master of Cyber Security programs in Australia preparing students for the workforce? This research flags a new direction for further, much needed research rather than claim to be an exhaustive analysis. The paper concludes that the requirement for purpose-driven and mission-specific cyber security education is increasing and recommends that this become a focus of new initiatives in cyber security education. Universities have an obligation to work with industry and government to ensure that cyber security programs are more directly preparing students for the workforce.

Edited excerpts from publication.