Developing Hands-On Cybersecurity Challenges to Improve Training and Assessment

There are over 700,000 vacant cybersecurity positions in the United States [1]. Addressing this vast shortage of cybersecurity professionals requires innovative approaches to developing new talent.

This talk will discuss how the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University creates hands-on cybersecurity challenges for innovative training and competitions. We will outline the best practices we have found when it comes to developing engaging content for programs such as the President’s Cup Cybersecurity Competition, designed to award the best cyber talent in the U.S. federal government. We will also highlight the intrinsic value of creating realistic challenge scenarios that assess/train on topics that operators are likely to use on the job.

Attendees will gain a better understanding of how to incorporate “challenges” into their cyber workforce assessments and can also complete demo challenges based on NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework work roles.