When spending a lot of time online, all users, regardless of age, are subject to various cybersecurity threats [1]. Young individuals are a specific target for these cybercrimes due to their lack of expertise in cybersecurity and cyber-safe habits. Despite the State of Ohio’s sponsored initiatives that benefit students, including $89 million for top-notch summer and after-school activities, there has not been a lot of focus on cybersecurity education at the high school level. This NSF-sponsored initiative's main objective is to educate high school students about cybersecurity through a free summer camp that includes lectures, lab sessions, and free lunch and snacks, focusing on including students from low-income and underrepresented families. It also aims to teach students to recognize fraudulent behavior in malicious apps by exposing them to apps that behave fraudulently.
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Practice-Oriented Smartphone Security Exercises for Developing Cybersecurity Mindset in High School Students
Advancements in technology and the increase in Internet usage through mobile devices have led to greater visibility of organizations and individuals to cybercrimes. Teenagers being easy targets of these cybercrimes, there is a need to educate them on cybersecurity trends since training students on existing cyberattacks is viewed as a powerful tool to teach cybersecurity. We present a pedagogical approach to train students to identify new threats and respond to mitigate them. This is accomplished through observatory, experiential, and real-life practice-oriented cybersecurity exercises. Seven malicious android applications targeting malware class and phishing, namely Email-Lite-Scare, Shop-Shock-Struck, CyberSafe Practices, Play-Read-Disrupt, Fish-A-Phish, Chat-Phish, and Spy-The-Trojan, have been developed. Psychological learning is emphasized in this approach by exercising the application extensively. The underlying goals of this work are to develop a security mindset, spread awareness on threats associated with smartphone/tablet usage, and to inculcate interest in cybersecurity careers among high school students.
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- PAR ID:
- 10280896
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2020 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE)
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 303 to 310
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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