Artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity are in-demand skills, but little is known about what factors influence computer science (CS) undergraduate students' decisions on whether to specialize in AI or cybersecurity and how these factors may differ between populations. In this study, we interviewed undergraduate CS majors about their perceptions of AI and cybersecurity. Qualitative analyses of these interviews show that students have narrow beliefs about what kind of work AI and cybersecurity entail, the kinds of people who work in these fields, and the potential societal impact AI and cybersecurity may have. Specifically, students tended to believe that all work in AI requires math and training models, while cybersecurity consists of low-level programming; that innately smart people work in both fields; that working in AI comes with ethical concerns; and that cybersecurity skills are important in contemporary society. Some of these perceptions reinforce existing stereotypes about computing and may disproportionately affect the participation of students from groups historically underrepresented in computing. Our key contribution is identifying beliefs that students expressed about AI and cybersecurity that may affect their interest in pursuing the two fields and may, therefore, inform efforts to expand students' views of AI and cybersecurity. Expanding student perceptions of AI and cybersecurity may help correct misconceptions and challenge narrow definitions, which in turn can encourage participation in these fields from all students.
more »
« less
Augmented Reality-Based Cybersecurity Education on Phishing
With the rising of remote work and schooling, the adaption of emerging technologies to teach the concepts of cybersecurity becomes critical. In this work, we present the concept, design, and prototype of a Mixed Reality-based cybersecurity education application on phishing, so that school children could be exposed to the subject remotely and practice to differentiate malicious from genuine messages.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2048874
- PAR ID:
- 10314949
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2021 IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Langran, E. (Ed.)This work discusses ongoing experiences in creating interdisciplinary solutions to the development of cybersecurity/computer science skills for K-12 teachers. Participants for this work were K-12 teachers; the work was conducted during the summer semester of 2020. Nine K-12 teachers enrolled in the pilot course, and five K-12 teachers completed modules 0 & 1 of the cybersecurity course. This work describes a month long, self-paced cybersecurity micro-credential which consisted of an introduction to cybersecurity and the CIA Triad (Confidentiality, Integrity, and Accessibility). The primary research question explores the extent to which the cybersecurity micro-credential was considered helpful in understanding cybersecurity concepts and principles. The authors utilized quantitative and qualitative data collection via four methods: 1) content knowledge quiz (quantitative); 2) focus group (qualitative); 3) five semi-structured interviews (qualitative) and 4) two bi-weekly progress reports (qualitative). Qualitatively, focus group, semi-structured interview questions, and bi-weekly progress reports were coded and grouped into major themes by searching descriptive words. Quantitatively, a moderate positive relationship was found between post-test scores and total time in hours spent on modules 0 & 1. The main limitation is the sample size (n=5), which is too small to produce generalizable results. The work showcases innovative tools for teaching cybersecurity.more » « less
-
With the shortage of cybersecurity professionals, there is a critical need to train more young-generation cybersecurity professionals to fill the gap. In this work, we designed interactive activities that make abstract cybersecurity concepts more tangible by using exciting new mixed reality (MR) technology to teach cybersecurity skills and raise the potential interest in cybersecurity careers for middle school students. We plan to analyze the immersive experience, situational interest, and workload after the experiment to study the participants' learning performance and user experience.more » « less
-
Despite significant contributions to various aspects of cybersecurity, cyber-attacks remain on the unfortunate rise. Increasingly, internationally recognized entities such as the National Science Foundation and National Science & Technology Council have noted Artificial Intelligence can help analyze billions of log files, Dark Web data, malware, and other data sources to help execute fundamental cybersecurity tasks. Our objective for the 1st Workshop on Artificial Intelligence-enabled Cybersecurity Analytics (half-day; co-located with ACM KDD) was to gather academic and practitioners to contribute recent work pertaining to AI-enabled cybersecurity analytics. We composed an outstanding, inter-disciplinary Program Committee with significant expertise in various aspects of AI-enabled Cybersecurity Analytics to evaluate the submitted work. Significant contributions to the half-day workshop were made in the areas of CTI, vulnerability assessment, and malware analysis.more » « less
-
An inter-collegiate research team completed initial research analysis of 166 professional cybersecurity workers from government and industry to identify talent profiles aligned four roles within the Protect and Defend (PD) NICE Workforce Framework: Cybersecurity Defense Analyst, Cybersecurity Defense Infrastructure Responder, Cybersecurity Incident Responder and Cybersecurity Vulnerability Assessment Analyst. Anonymized data collected from multiple teams with performance assessments to build a statistically validated profiles of high potential PD cybersecurity candidates. The World of Work Inventory (WOWI) a multi-dimensional on-line career tool, assesses career training potential, job satisfaction indicators and career interests. Anonymized, aggregated ranked data described profiles of existing high performing candidates working in the field. Utilization of a statistically validated methodology to identify cybersecurity talent at different phases of an individual’s career life cycle supports recruitment of high potential talent from diverse backgrounds to increase the numbers of candidates entering cybersecurity education and training programs.more » « less
An official website of the United States government

