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Creators/Authors contains: "Javaid, Ahmad Y"

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  1. The enormous advancement of digital technology and the Internet usage have significantly improved our lives, but have threatened our security and privacy as well. Cyberattacks may have harmful long-term implications to individuals and organizations. High school students are accessible targets for various cybercrimes due to the lack of cybersecurity knowledge and cyber-safe practices. It is important that education about cybersecurity awareness and cyber hygiene practices must begin at a young age. Offering cybersecurity knowledge through interactive tutorials and game-based techniques may increase students' interest in this domain. To develop a security mindset and improve the perception and attitude towards cybersecurity, we created an interactive cybersecurity framework for high school students. Through this framework, we attempt to effectively educate students in cybersecurity through interactive animated visualization modules developed in Unity 3D engine, enabling learning of physical, software, and mathematical aspects of cybersecurity. Each topic in the visualization tool is explained in four stages including information, interaction, explanation, and assessment. Several surveys have been conducted to determine whether this framework enhances users' cognitive abilities. 
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  2. The increasing use of computer technologies to perform everyday activities simplifies living, but brings the underlying cybersecurity concern to the fore. Due to the accessibility of smartphones, many teenagers are “online” for significant hours in a day. Many middle and high school students have been victims of a cybercrime through online activities. Additionally, various incidents of Internet fraud have been reported where teenagers are persuaded to buy games, music, and videos without realizing they are falling for a scam or disclosing their credit card information. Studies have shown that implementing a successful security awareness camp is crucial in boosting cybersecurity and attracting talent to this domain. This paper discusses our efforts on creating smartphone apps in the context of cyber-security to encourage safe use of apps and raise awareness among teenagers. The strategy used is to develop apps with the intention of closing security gaps. By doing this, teenagers gain a wealth of information about cybersecurity. This work aims to develop students' problem-solving skills and create a cybersecurity mindset for dealing with real-world cybersecurity-related problems such as malware or phishing assaults and to promote interest in cybersecurity careers among high school students utilizing smartphone-based interactive learning modules. We also examine gender-specific patterns and evaluate whether students' cybersecurity problem-solving skills have improved due to this novel intervention. 
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  3. Ensuring software security is a critical task for a deliverable software system in today’s world, and its proper implementation guarantees the quality and security of the information ingested, stored, and processed by the system. It is imperative to introduce computer science and computer engineering students (CS/CE) with the secure software design practices early in their curriculum. This approach will help them understand fundamentals of secure programming, vulnerabilities in software systems, and secure software development before joining the industry workforce. In this paper, we propose an educational framework that integrates software security concepts in a software engineering design course. We envision that the framework will engage CS/CE students applying security principles and practices in different phases of the software development life cycle (SDLC) process. Our work focuses on review of common security requirements, policies, and mechanisms related to specific use cases as well as how those requirements are defined during the software design. 
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  4. null (Ed.)
    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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  5. As technology keeps overgrowing, Internet surfing becomes more popular. As a consequence, users tend to use it for social media, shopping, banking, or any other online services in which they need to put their personal information. These online activities attract malicious computer users to apply cyberattack techniques to steal other user's data. The users become attack victims due to limited understanding of cyberattacks and safety practices. In this paper, we propose a framework development for interactive and engaging cybersecurity education. With the help of the framework, the users will be able to learn different types of cyberattacks and defenses along with the safe cybersecurity practices. We also discuss the current state of the framework and conclude the paper with a discussion on limitations and future work. 
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