Cybersecurity engineering is quickly becoming a lucrative field to become well educated in due to the digital exodus that companies are making into cloud-based solutions. Entire companies and even power utilities that service an entire country are moving their operations and interfaces into the cloud, using the Internet of Things to access data output they were previously never able to observe. These systems need security and that is where cyber security engineers come in.
Tertiary institutions now offer modules that would assist individuals with becoming proficient in securing companies, and in turn, protecting them from cyber attacks. To lay the groundwork for being qualified as a cyber security engineer, an individual – for example – could take a six-week Cybersecurity for automation, control, and SCADA systems course.
CloudPassage, who offer cyber security to enterprises, say that cyber security education in U.S. tertiary institutions got an ‘F’ for cybersecurity education. The group says that they conducted research of 121 top-ranked U.S. universities and discovered shocking revelations.
Their findings regarding the top 50 universities [out of the 121 surveyed] revealed:
- None of the top 10 U.S. computer science programs require a cybersecurity course for graduation. In fact, three of the top 10 university programs don’t even offer an elective coourse in cybersecurity
- University of Michigan (ranked 12th) is the only one of the U.S. News & World Report’s top 36 U.S. computer sccience programs that requires a security course for graduation
- Only three of Business Insiders’ top 50 U.S. computer science programs require a cybersecurity course for graduation: University of Michigan, Brigham Young and Colorado State University
CloudPassage also quoted Commerce Secretary, Penny Pritzker, who said that there are 210,000 unfilled cybersecurity jobs in the U.S.
Robert Thomas, the CEO of Cloudpassage said: “There needs to be a fundamental shift in the cybersecurity paradigm; we must get to a point where every university requires computer science majors to complete cybersecurity training as a graduation requirement, so that the programmers and developers of the next generation have security front-of-mind when delivering products to the market.”
These revelations reported on whilst the Government Accountability Office of the United States issues a warning about cybersecurity of vehicles. The fact that self-driving cars can be hacked into is becoming a concern for the GOA and the current capability hackers might have to hack into vehicles.
“Researchers have shown that these interfaces — if not properly secured — can be exploited through direct, physical access to a vehicle, as well as remotely through short-range and long-range wireless channels. For example, researchers have shown that attackers could compromise vulnerabilities in the short-range wireless connections to vehicles’ Bluetooth units — which enable hands-free cell phone use — to gain access to in-vehicle networks, to take control over safety-critical functions such as the brakes.”
