Great question - just taught cybersecurity at BSc level using CIA. Exam question which asked the students to apply knowledge had disappointing results. I wrote recent paper on Researchgate on critical thinking which is needed in cybersecurity for Red Team. Do we teach tools or thinking? Do we have CTF as course at Masters? I looked at PhD in cybersecurity but too narrow. The challenges are to get thinking

The problem I see is the lack of connection between Science and technical solutions. Perhaps this problem in a special way concerns Poland, but I met many people at various levels of scientific development, often with vast theoretical knowledge and a negligible translation of this knowledge into practical issues.

The second problem I see is focusing on communication and software issues in isolation from the hardware layer. As a consequence, people in the field of cyber security end their knowledge of the devices they will work with at the level of marketing leaflets.

In my opinion, it would be good to have more physics and electronics, as well as as many practical classes as possible.

Another thing is learning Russian. If someone wants to work in cybersecurity - knowledge of Russian can be an important asset for another 20-30 years.

As I can see, the motivation problem is the Great Problem :) of information security education for bachelor and master students. We have a lot of activities for motivation increasing, includes gamification (CTF, card games, etc.), online- and mobile security courses, but the practice and working activities are more interesting for them.

My views, being an area of increasing interest, it should be adequately motivated at Msc level despite the fact that it will be more challenging at higher levels of PhD above.

I think Bruce Williams is spot on for critical thinking, but also if students don't have an understanding of key concepts of computer science, computer information systems, networks and then some higher level understanding of access control, then you have no substance to think critically about. Sometimes its very hard to understand how all these pieces come together, then try in understand why it was proven to be the best way to implement, and why now that model doesn't work anymore. I have participated in a number of entry-level CTF's and I can tell you that understanding the tools, how and where to use them was really the interesting part. it's actually pretty amazing how advance some of the tools are but you still hit a brick wall when you don't understand the concepts. When you don't know the different phases of red teaming or understanding the arsenal of tools you have available. You would hope a graduate or PhD level individual would be able to take a CTF type course and really gain some form of insight, but I believe they would spend most of there time trying to understand the tools and maybe not gaining the fundamentals. In my opinion, we should not wait to introduce CTF's, and other mediums to Masters or PhD students. This should be a BSc level course activity to get them thinking in the way of software exploitation's, systems, and vulnerabilities, then by the time the student reaches higher level courses, they will be ready to push the science further, rather than trying to learn the basics. This would be for an ideal situation when being introduced to the university setting for the first time, which brings me to my next point.

I'm starting to believe that Cybersecurity as a field of study is having the same issue that Data science is having. Where it was born out of a group of specialties to tackle a single problem. The ideal individual in cybersecurity would know about 4 or 5 different specialties to be very effective and it looks like some BS.c , Msc and PhD curriculum are not addressing those issues. I would say if you want to focus on tools, then we would probably look at the tool's purpose and maybe have students write there own to accomplish the same goals.

From a Computer Science point of view, there are a ton of software exploits that have redefined some CS theory that needs to be updated and taught. The same goes for CE, low level and Embedded Security. CIS/MIS , distributed systems security, access controls, databases, and security architecture and lastly encryption techniques, data analysis, machine learning, neural networks, and deep learning. I think it is a challenge but I also think there are a ton of resources out there that can assist. I think we have enough data now to know how we can create a curriculum to prepare an individual but also benefit cybersecurity as a science with research.

It is quite complex question. As for me the most important factors are

- combining different areas of knowledge in one professional - cybersecurity has a quite systematic nature and weak link could compromise all protection, respectively lack of certain area knowledge (even lack of the knowledge about it existence) degrades specialist;

- motivation from IT community: cybersecurity is quite important, but don't forget it is supporting area of IT and a lot of IT products were and (unfortunately!) would be developed without considering it seriously. Consequently usually it is underestimated and treated poorly (provided by non-professionals in the area) until it is too late;

- connection between science and technical solutions, but not only in the way Paweł Kaczmarzyk mentioned, but in the reverse way as well. Huge, very huge number of solutions were implemented sooo poorly because the developers didn't consider scientific results and expertise, even didn't consider it as something needed to project (for example, recall operating systems "security" subsystems in XX century). In more recent history consider Blockchain implementations. Blockchain is a great idea, which sorely lack proper implementations. It is/was quite a hype around that technology, but it is constantly being compromised by a great number of poor solutions, bad algorithms choices, many code workarounds, bunch of bugs. So projects, which budget were millions or even billions of US dollars could look worse, than freshmen's course project. All of these is caused by lack of scientific expertise and scientific methodology of developer teams. (And don't misunderstand me - there are some very nice blockchain-based projects in my opinion).

I agree with Aqil. if students don't have an understanding of key concepts of computer science, computer information systems, networks and then some higher level understanding of access control, then you have no substance to think critically about. I taught networking to the students who are not in university but technical college. We taught the stand Kali tools on top of their networking training. Aqil was very good with access control (my background was access control) but the students did not like this layer. So we build them up with concepts but at the same time we get them to think about alternatives. I always think that a good social engineering hacker gets you in the door faster. I wrote and an article about the history of pen testing from my experience and was surprised to see it was used on mainframes in the 1970s. I looked at the tools over the years. So fast changing field needing a combination of a skill set.

Dear Eduard Babulak,

The analysis of banking Trojans consists in researching methods of cybercrime in the field of infecting the bank's information systems, both those which are intra-bank and those that serve bank customers as part of online mobile banking. Analysis of attacks by cybercriminals, for example, viruses popular in recent years, trojans of the ransomware type, which after encrypting computers encrypt data disks. In addition, other types of Trojan horses are used to steal sensitive data, personal customers or embezzlement of money from clients' bank accounts, extorting loans, etc. After analyzing methods used by cybercriminals, banks strengthen security systems, protect banking systems against these attacks, improve security and authorization tools online banking clients. In addition, the next step is to improve the risk management process of IT systems. I described these issues, among others, in the following publications:

In addition, cybercriminal attacks on electronic banking systems are probably much more than official statistics provide, because banks do not boast of these events if they do not have to.

This is because many of these cybercrime attacks are ineffective or have relatively low costs, and the identified gaps in the e-banking system are quickly repaired.

however, if the bank customers knew all these events of cyber-criminals, this could reduce the level of confidence in banks.

Then, bank customers could start to withdraw bank deposits from banks and dopiers on a massive scale, then a serious problem for banks would appear associated with a sharp increase in the level of liquidity risk.

Best wishes

Dear Friends and Colleagues of RG

The issues of key aspects of online banking security are described in the publications:

Article DETERMINANTS OF THE SAFETY OF THE ELECTRONIC DAILY TRANSFER ...

Article IMPORTANCE AND SECURITY OF INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE INTER...

I described the problem of cybercrime in publications:

Chapter Propaganda i świadomość w procesie radykalizacji - wzmacnian...

Chapter Determinanty rozwoju cyberprzestępczych ataków na systemy in...

Chapter Analiza bezpieczeństwa ochrony systemów informatycznych w ko...

Chapter Rozwój złośliwego oprogramowania ransomware jako nowy wymiar...

Article Ochrona transferu danych osobowych w cyberprzestrzeni (The P...

Chapter Bezpieczeństwo bankowości internetowej i uwarunkowania elekt...

Chapter Prawno-społeczne determinanty bezpieczeństwa gromadzenia i t...

Article Zagrożenia rozwoju i bezpieczeństwo bankowości elektronicznej

Chapter Przestępczość elektroniczna i kradzież poufnych informacji –...

I invite you to discussions.

Best wishes

I suggest the following research question:

Are ransomware viruses attacking again?

Antivirus programs signal this, but are the new attacks appearing, or maybe the companies that produce antivirus software use this kind of alerts mainly to stimulate consumers to buy these applications?

Is the information about the growing threat from the activities of cybercriminals also partly a result of marketing activities of antivirus software vendors?

Cybercriminal attacks involving various types of viruses occur on a daily basis in various places around the globe.

However, large-scale attacks on the global scale and publicized in the media are probably much rarer.

An example was the type of cybercriminals, which was carried out on a large scale in mid-2017, which was mainly targeted at large public and financial institutions and corporations operating in Ukraine, but quickly spread over the world through capital and business links between companies.

Then ransomware viruses known only often in the environments of security specialists, among computer scientists analyzing cybercriminal attacks, has been publicized in the media in many countries and has become a global and public problem.

In this situation, sales revenues and profits of companies producing antivirus software are growing significantly.

Recently, some of these antivirus programs inform that the threat of cybercriminal attacks involving ransomware is growing.

Is it a real increase in the risk of cybercrime or a new form of marketing for companies that produce antivirus software?

Or both?

Best wishes

In addition, I also propose the following research question:

Is the risk of cybercriminal attacks on Big Data database systems containing personal data of social media portal users growing?

The field of research and business applications in the field of obtaining, archiving, analyzing and processing data in Big Data database systems has been developing strongly for several years.

There were hacking theft of personal, sensitive and secret data regarding users of social networks.

Are the results of research known, or are you familiar with publications describing risk management processes in the area of obtaining, archiving, analyzing and processing data in Big Data systems run by technological internet companies such as Google, Facebook, etc.

Technological internet companies such as Google, Facebook, etc. have the ability to obtain classified, sensitive and personal data from the Internet about the users of websites, including search engines and social media portals, who use these information services.

For the needs of these considerations, the issue of the security of classified data stored in Big Data database systems run by internet technology companies managing social media portals should be added.

There have been frequent thefts made by cybercriminals who, from these Big Data systems, stole classified and sensitive information about hundreds of thousands or millions of users of particular social media portals.

The development of social media portals therefore generates an increased risk of theft of data on users of social media portals.

Therefore, technological internet companies that run social media portals but also other companies that collect large amounts of data about users of specific, information services should continually develop and improve risk management systems for potential data loss from Big Data information resources.

Due to the above, in many companies, especially in large corporations, integrated risk management systems are built and improved.

Integrated risk management systems combine risk management processes in various areas of a company, institution or other organization.

One of the areas of risk management, the importance of which in many companies is growing, is risk management in the area of obtaining, archiving, analyzing and processing data in Big Data database systems.

Best wishes

Perhaps, intensive short-term taylor-made courses (e.g. Coursera-style) that are specially designed to train specific certain skills (programming, crash course in any domain etc).

Eduard Babulak

Indeed teaching Cyber Security in higher education at BSc, MSc PhD & postdoctoral level is good option, could increse cyber awareness.

Awareness related Cyber Security in higher education at BSc, MSc PhD & postdoctoral level could help increase cyber awareness other wise compute concepts would very hard to digest for every one.

Online Coursera style awareness course is a good option.