Cybersecurity Training and Awareness

Challenges & Objectives

Cybersecurity education and training play an important role in the EU’s ability to provide enough own cybersecurity experts and to retain its sovereignty and technological advantage. To keep the pace with industry and job market, novel cybersecurity study and training programs must be created and the existing ones must be regularly updated. The objective of the Activity 5: Cybersecurity training and awareness is to provide methodologies, tools and knowledge that help universities and training institutions to design, extend and maintain the cybersecurity programs and to raise the awareness about cybersecurity education.

Action & Impacts

In the period between 2019 and 2022, the Activity 5 is focused mainly on these actions:
• Development of a cybersecurity skills framework,
• Mapping of existing cybersecurity study programs,
• Development of good-practice curricula for higher education and professional training,
• Utilization of skills framework in cyber-ranges and federation of cyber-ranges,
• Practical evaluation of curricula and training infrastructures.

Results

The SPARTA Cybersecurity Skills Framework (CSF) that links the Knowledge, Abilities and Skills (KAS) with Work Roles and education Topics is presented here. Using the SPARTA CSF, it is possible to design and/or analyze a curriculum according to the specific requirements of a work role (i.e., a job position) and find a common language for course content description across different institutions.

The Education Map that contains a detailed analysis of more than 80 higher education programs worldwide is presented here.

The Design Methodology and sample Curricula for higher education and professional training can be found here.

The Curricula Designer tool for designing and analysis of study programs with respect to SPARTA CSF is presented here

Figure: SPARTA Topics from SPARTA CSF used for university courses description

Training and education use case with SPARTA Curricula Designer

As ENISA released the ECSF - European Cybersecurity Skills Framework -, a mapping of the roles, competencies, skills and knowledge used by and for individuals, employers and training providers to address the cybersecurity skills shortage, SPARTA presents this manual to provide recommendations on how ECSF can be used to shape education programmes that are linked with cybersecurity. As ECSF manifests the structure of high-level profiles from practitioners’ point of view, including main tasks, relevant knowledge and skills, this can provide more focused approach for building specialized and comprehensive study programs, tailored to specific profiles, instead of covering cybersecurity in general.