In February of 1997, I provided testimony to a Congressional committee about the state of cyber security education. I noted that there were only four major academic programs, with limited resources, in information security at that time. I outlined some steps that could be taken to improve our national posture in the field. Subsequently, I was involved in discussions with staffers of some Congressional committees, with staff at NSF, with National Security Council staff (notably, Richard Clarke), and people at the Department of Defense. These discussions eventually helped produce¹ the Scholarship for Service program at NSF, the NSF CyberTrust program (now known as Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace, SaTC), and the Centers of Academic Excellence program.

On 11 May 1999, 20 years ago, Purdue University ² was recognized by the NSA as one of the initial Centers of Academic Excellence (CAE).³ There were some notable advocates of enhanced cyber security at each institution, and they had taken steps to institute courses and research to improve the field—notably including Corey Schou (recently inducted into the Cybersecurity Hall of Fame), Matt Bishop, Deborah Frincke, and Doug Jacobson, to name a few.⁴ As I recall, Dick Clarke was one of the prime movers to get the CAE program established under PDD-63; Dr, Vic Maconachy (then) at NSA became the director of the CAE program.

Over the years, the CAE program has continued to expand, to now encompass several hundred institutions around the US. DHS has become involved as a co-sponsor with the NSA. The main certification has bifurcated into a designation for cyber defense research (CAE-R) and a designation for cyber defense education (CAE-CDE). There ia also a designation for Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations. The NSA, as a member of the US intelligence community (IC) also helps support a program for IC Centers of Academic Excellence. In addition to the formal external evaluation process to be designated as a CAE, the program has resulted in creation of curricular guidelines and recommended best practices for educational programs. A number of leaders in education in the field have also grown out of this process, creating various resources for the community (some of which are hosted at the CLARK website for public use).

I have been critical of the overall CAE program in the past (cf. here and here). I believe most of the criticisms I made are still valid, particularly the ones concerning the designation of "excellence" and the burden of the application process. Nonetheless, there is no denying that the listed insitutitions have made strides to improve and standardize their programs towards much-needed common goals. There is also continuing (and growing) synergy with efforts such as the NIST National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) program and the National Colloquium on Information Systems Security Education (NISSE). Additionally, there has been real progress towards establishing standardized undergraduate curricula in the field, which now includes the potential for ABET accreditation.

Those of us at Purdue recently received notice that Purdue has been recertified as a CAE-R through 2024. This is a result—in large part—of efforts by Dr. James Lerums , one of our recent Ph.D. grads. He volunteered his time to sift through all the documentsation, gathered the necessary information, and completed the application process. It was a significant effort and kudos to Jim for taking it on soon after completing a Ph.D. dissertation!

Despite some of my "grumpy old dude" criticisms, I am glad to see Purdue continue to be recognized for the continued excellence of its programs. CERIAS continues to be a focal point for the "R" aspect of the CAE-R as Purdue's designated research institute in the field: that's the "R" in CERIAS. However, it has also been Purdue's center for education for most of its existence: the "E" in CERIAS is for Education. That history includes the establishment of the first designated degree in information security in 2000, still offered as an interdisciplinary MS and PhD (which is the program Jim Lerums completed, btw).

As for the CAE program itself, and for the 5 (out of 6) other programs receiving that initial CAE designation that are still listed as CAEs, congratulations: we've come a long way, but there is still a long way to go!

Footnotes

1. I always note that I cannot claim sole or primary credit for these initiatives; nonetheless, I was the first to publicly advocate for programs such as these, and was involved in the many of the discussions. Dick Clarke deserves a good deal of credit for his active advocacy for the area at the time, as does Lt. General (ret.) Ken Minihan (also a recent CSHOF inductee) for his support.
2. Via CERIAS, one year old at the time.
3. Also in that group were James Madison University, George Mason University, Idaho State University, Iowa State University, the University of California at Davis, and the University of Idaho.
4. My apologies to others whose names I omitted.

I created a YouTube channel a while back, and began uploading my videos and linking in videos of me that were online. Yes, it’s a dedicated Spaf channel! However, I’m not on camera eating Tide pods, or doing odd skateboard stunts. This is a set of videos with my research and views over the years on information (cyber) security, research, education, and policies.

There are two playlists under the channel — one for interviews that people have conducted with me over the years, and the other being various conference and seminar talks.

One of the seminar talks was one I did at Bellcore on the Internet Worm — about 6 weeks after it occurred (yes, that’s 1988)! Many of my observations and recommendations in that talk seem remarkably current — which I don’t think is necessarily a good observation about how current practice has (not) evolved.

My most recent talk/video is a redo of my keynote address at the 2017 CISSE conference held in June, 2017 in Las Vegas. The talk specifically addresses what I see as the needs in current information security education. CISSE was unable to record it at the time, so I redid it for posterity based on the speaker notes. It only runs about 35 minutes long (there were no introductions or Q&A to field) so it is a quicker watch than being at the conference!

I think there are some other goodies in all of those videos, including views of my bow ties over the years, plus some of my predictions (most of which seem to have been pretty good). However, I am putting these out without having carefully reviewed them — there may be some embarrassing goofs among the (few) pearls of wisdom. It is almost certain that many things changed away from the operational environment that existed at the time I gave some of these talks, so I’m sure some comments will appear “quaint” in retrospect. However, I decided that I would share what I could because someone, somewhere, might find these of value.

If you know of a recording I don’t have linked in to one of the lists, please let me know.

Comments appreciated. Give it a look!

Over the years, I've gotten to know many people working in security and privacy. Too few have focused on issues relating to children and young adults. Thankfully, one of these people is Linda McCarthy. A security professional with an impressive resume that includes senior positions at Sun Microsystems and Symantec, Linda has had actual "boots-on-the-ground" experience in the practice of information protection.

Linda has written several books on security, including "Intranet Security - Stories from the Trenches," and "IT Security: Risking the Corporation." She also co-authored the recent free, quite popular, Facebook tutorial on security and privacy. I have read these, heard her speak, and worked with her on projects over the years -- Linda is thoughtful, engaging and an effective communicator on the topics of security and privacy. I'm not the only person to think so -- not too long ago she was a recipient of the prestigious Women of Influence award, presented by CSO Magazine and Alta Associates, recognizing her many achievements in security, privacy and risk management.

About a decade ago, based on some personal experiences with young adults close to her, Linda took on the cause of education about how to be safe online. Youngsters seldom have the experience (and the judgement born of experience) to make the best choices about how to protect themselves. Couple that naiveté with the lure of social contact and the lack of highly-visible controls, and toss in a dash of the opportunity to rebel against elders, and a dangerous mix results. Few people, young or old, truly grasp the extent and reach in time and space of the Internet -- postings of pictures and statements never really go away. Marketers, for one, love that depth of data to mine, but it is a nightmare that can haunt the unwary for decades to come.

Long term loss of privacy isn't the only threat, of course. Only last week news broke of yet another tragic suicide caused by cyberbullies; there is a quiet epidemic of this kind of abuse. Also, Miss Teen USA, Cassidy Wolf, spoke a few days ago about being the victim of cyberstalking and sexual extortion. These are not things kids think about when going online -- and neither do their parents. This is the complex milieu that Linda is confronting.

In 2006, Linda began to focus on writing for the younger set and produced "Own Your Space: Keep Yourself and Your Stuff Safe Online," which is a nice introduction that kids seem to appreciate. A few years ago, Linda updated it and under a Creative Commons license it is now available as a free download from Microsoft (among others). I wrote about the release of that update in this blog in 2010.

Earlier this year, Linda released a new book, "Digital Drama: Staying Safe While Being Social Online" (also available en español). This book covers a multitude of issues, including privacy, reputation, online bullying and stalking, avoiding predators, spotting scams, how to manage settings and online persona, and a wealth of other valuable insights for young people -- and therefore it is also of value to their parents, teachers, and an older audience that may not have the expertise but faces many of the same concerns. Linda's book doesn't address all the problems out there -- she doesn't address the really dark side of youth gang culture, for instance -- but this book does admirably cover many of the major issues that face kids who really want to stay out of trouble.

What makes this especially useful is a limited-time offer. In support of National Cyber Security Awareness Month, Microsoft has provided support to allow Linda to offer a free digital download of "Digital Drama" from Amazon.com (the Spanish version, too). Parents, teachers, teens, tweens, kids, and the young at heart can all get that free download from 12am on Tuesday, September 24th until 11:59pm on Friday, September 27 (2013; times are PDT). (If you are reading this blog after that week, you should still check out the book.)

To quote from the "About this book" section of Amazon:

Every day, millions of teens log on and make decisions that can compromise their safety, security, privacy, and future. If you are like most teens, you are already using social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook and have your smartphone super-glued to your hand. You tag your friends in photos, share your location and thoughts with friends, and post jokes online that later may be misunderstood. At the same time, you might not realize how that information can affect your reputation and safety, both online and offline. We’ve all heard the horror stories of stolen identities, cyber stalking, pedophiles on the Internet, and lost job, school, and personal opportunities. All teens need to learn how to protect themselves against malware, social networking scams, and cyberbullies. Learn crucial skills:
- Deal with cyberbullies
- Learn key social networking skills
- Protect your privacy
- Create a positive online reputation
-Protect yourself from phishing and malware scams

Spaf sez, "Check it out."

[I was recently asked for some thoughts on the issues of professionalization and education of people working in cyber security. I realize I have been asked this many times, I and I keep repeating my answers, to various levels of specificity. So, here is an attempt to capture some of my thoughts so I can redirect future queries here.]

There are several issues relating to the area of personnel in this field that make issues of education and professional definition more complex and difficult to define. The field has changing requirements and increasing needs (largely because industry and government ignored the warnings some of us were sounding many years ago, but that is another story, oft told -- and ignored).

When I talk about educational and personnel needs, I discuss it metaphorically, using two dimensions. Along one axis is the continuum (with an arbitrary directionality) of science, engineering, and technology. Science is the study of fundamental properties and investigation of what is possible -- and the bounds on that possibility. Engineering is the study of design and building new artifacts under constraints. Technology is the study of how to choose from existing artifacts and employ them effectively to solve problems.

The second axis is the range of pure practice to abstraction. This axis is less linear than the other (which is not exactly linear, either), and I don't yet have a good scale for it. However, conceptually I relate it to applying levels of abstraction and anticipation. At its "practice" end are those who actually put in the settings and read the logs of currently-existing artifacts; they do almost no hypothesizing. Moving the other direction we see increasing interaction with abstract thought, people and systems, including operations, law enforcement, management, economics, politics, and eventually, pure theory. At one end, it is "hands-on" with the technology, and at the other is pure interaction with people and abstractions, and perhaps no contact with the technology.

There are also levels of mastery involved for different tasks, such as articulated in Bloom's Taxonomy of learning. Adding that in would provide more complexity than can fit in this blog entry (which is already too long).

The means of acquisition of necessary expertise varies for any position within this field. Many technicians can be effective with simple training, sometimes with at most on-the-job experience. They usually need little or no background beyond everyday practice. Those at the extremes of abstract thought in theory or policy need considerably more background, of the form we generally associate with higher education (although that is not strictly required), often with advanced degrees. And, of course, throughout, people need some innate abilities and motivation for the role they seek; Not everyone has ability, innate or developed, for each task area.

We have need of the full spectrum of these different forms of expertise, with government and industry currently putting an emphasis on the extremes of the quadrant involving technology/practice -- they have problems, now, and want people to populate the "digital ramparts" to defend them. This emphasis applies to those who operate the IDS and firewalls, but also to those who find ways to exploit existing systems (that is an area I believe has been overemphasized by government. Cf. my old blog post and a recent post by Gary McGraw). Many, if not most, of these people can acquire needed skills via training -- such as are acquired on the job, in 1-10 day "minicourses" provided by commercial organizations, and vocational education (e.g, some secondary ed, 2-year degree programs). These kinds of roles are easily designated with testing and course completion certificates.

Note carefully that there is no value statement being made here -- deeply technical roles are fundamental to civilization as we know it. The plumbers, electricians, EMTs, police, mechanics, clerks, and so on are key to our quality of life. The programs that prepare people for those careers are vital, too.

Of course, there are also careers that are directly located in many other places in the abstract plane illustrated above: scientists, software engineers, managers, policy makers, and even bow tie-wearing professors.

One problem comes about when we try to impose sharply-defined categories on all of this, and say that person X has sufficient mastery of the category to perform tasks A, B, and C that are perceived as part of that category. However, those categories are necessarily shifting, not well-defined, and new needs are constantly arising. For instance, we have someone well trained in selecting and operating firewalls and IDS, but suddenly she is confronted with the need to investigate a possible act of nation-state espionage, determine what was done, and how it happened. Or, she is asked to set corporate policy for use of BYOD without knowledge of all the various job functions and people involved. Further deployment of mobile and embedded computing will add further shifts. The skills to do most of these tasks are not easily designated, although a combination of certificates and experience may be useful.

Too many (current) educational programs stress only the technology -- and many others include significant technology training components because of pressure by outside entities -- rather than a full spectrum of education and skills. We have a real shortage of people who have any significant insight into the scope of application of policy, management, law, economics, psychology and the like to cybersecurity, although arguably, those are some of the problems most obvious to those who have the long view. (BTW, that is why CERIAS was founded 15 years ago including faculty in nearly 20 academic departments: "cybersecurity" is not solely a technology issue; this has more recently been recognized by several other universities that are now also treating it holistically.) These other skill areas often require deeper education and repetition of exercises involving abstract thought. It seems that not as many people are naturally capable of mastering these skills. The primary means we use to designate mastery is through postsecondary degrees, although their exact meaning does vary based on the granting institution.

So, consider some the bottom line questions of "professionalization" -- what is, exactly, the profession? What purposes does it serve to delineate one or more niche areas, especially in a domain of knowledge and practice that changes so rapidly? Who should define those areas? Do we require some certification to practice in the field? Given the above, I would contend that too many people have too narrow a view of the domain, and they are seeking some way of ensuring competence only for their narrow application needs. There is therefore a risk that imposing "professional certifications" on this field would both serve to further skew the perception of what is involved, and discourage development of some needed expertise. Defining narrow paths or skill sets for "the profession" might well do the same. Furthermore, much of the body of knowledge is heuristics and "best practice" that has little basis in sound science and engineering. Calling someone in the 1600s a "medical professional" because he knew how to let blood, apply leeches, and hack off limbs with a carpenter's saw using assistants to hold down the unanesthitized patient creates a certain cognitive dissonance; today, calling someone a "cyber security professional" based on knowledge of how to configure Windows, deploy a firewall, and install anti-virus programs should probably be viewed as a similar oddity. We need to evolve to where the deployed base isn't so flawed, and we have some knowledge of what security really is -- evolve from the equivalent of "sawbones" to infectious disease specialists.

We have already seen some of this unfortunate side-effect with the DOD requirements for certifications. Now DOD is about to revisit the requirements, because they have found that many people with certifications don't have the skills they (DOD) think they want. Arguably, people who enter careers and seek (and receive) certification are professionals, at least in a current sense of that word. It is not their fault that the employers don't understand the profession and the nature of the field. Also notable are cases of people with extensive experience and education, who exceed the real needs, but are not eligible for employment because they have not paid for the courses and exams serving as gateways for particular certificates -- and cash cows for their issuing organizations. There are many disconnects in all of this. We also saw skew develop in the academic CAE program.

Here is a short parable that also has implications for this topic.

In the early 1900s, officials with the Bell company (telephones) were very concerned. They told officials and the public that there was a looming personnel crisis. They predicted that, at the then-current rate of growth, by the end of the century everyone in the country would need to be a telephone operator or telephone installer. Clearly, this was impossible.

Fast forward to recent times. Those early predictions were correct. Everyone was an installer -- each could buy a phone at the corner store, and plug it into a jack in the wall at home. Or, simpler yet, they could buy cellphones that were already on. And everyone was an operator -- instead of using plugboards and directory assistance, they would use an online service to get a phone number and enter it in the keypad (or speed dial from memory). What happened? Focused research, technology evolution, investment in infrastructure, economics, policy, and psychology (among others) interacted to "shift the paradigm" to one that no longer had the looming personnel problems.

If we devoted more resources and attention to the broadly focused issues of information protection (not "cyber" -- can we put that term to rest?), we might well obviate many of the problems that now require legions of technicians. Why do we have firewalls and IDS? In large part, because the underlying software and hardware was not designed for use in an open environment, and its development is terribly buggy and poorly configured. The languages, systems, protocols, and personnel involved in the current infrastructure all need rethinking and reengineering. But so long as the powers-that-be emphasize retaining (and expanding) legacy artifacts and compatibility based on up-front expense instead of overall quality, and in training yet more people to be the "cyber operators" defending those poor choices, we are not going to make the advances necessary to move beyond them (and, to repeat, many of us have been warning about that for decades). And we are never going to have enough "professionals" to keep them safe. We are focusing on the short term and will lose the overall struggle; we need to evolve our way out of the problems, not meet them with an ever-growing band of mercenaries.

The bottom line? We should be very cautious in defining what a "professional" is in this field so that we don't institutionalize limitations and bad practices. And we should do more to broaden the scope of education for those who work in those "professions" to ensure that their focus -- and skills -- are not so limited as to miss important features that should be part of what they do. As one glaring example, think "privacy" -- how many of the "professionals" working in the field have a good grounding and concern about preserving privacy (and other civil rights) in what they do? Where is privacy even mentioned in "cybersecurity"? What else are they missing?

[If this isn't enough of my musings on education, you can read two of my ideas in a white paper I wrote in 2010. Unfortunately, although many in policy circles say they like the ideas, no one has shown any signs of acting as a champion for either.]

[3/2/2013] While at the RSA Conference, I was interviewed by the Information Security Media Group on the topic of cyber workforce. The video is available online.

Almost two years ago I wrote in this blog about how CERIAS (and Purdue) was not going to resubmit for the NSA/DHS Centers of Academic Excellence program.

Some of you may notice that Purdue is listed among this year's (2010) group of educational institutions receiving designation as one of the CAEs in that program. Specifically, we have received designation as a CAE-R (Center of Academic Excellence in Research).

"What changed?" you may ask, and "Why did you submit?"

The simple answers are "Not that much," and "Because it was the least-effort solution to a problem." A little more elaborate answers follow. (It would help if you read the previous post on this topic to put what follows in context.)

Basically, the first three reasons I listed in the previous post still hold:

1. The CAE program is still not a good indicator of real excellence. The program now has 125 designated institutions, ranging from top research universities in IA (e.g., Purdue, CMU, Georgia Tech) to 2-year community colleges. To call all of those programs "excellent" and to suggest they are equivalent in a meaningful way is unfair to students who wish to enter the field, and unfair to the people who work at all of those institutions. I have no objection to labeling the evaluation as a high-level evaluation of competence, but "excellence" is still not appropriate.   
2. The CNSS standards are still used for the CAE and are not really appropriate for the field as it currently stands. Furthermore, the IACE program used to certify CNSS compliance explicitly notes "The certification process does not address the quality of the presentation of the material within the courseware; it simply ensures that all the elements of a specific standard are included.." How the heck can a program be certified as "excellent" when the quality is not addressed? By that measure, a glass of water is insufficient, but drowning someone under 30ft of water is "excellent."
3. There still are no dedicated resources for CAE schools. There are several grant programs and scholarships via NSF, DHS, and DOD for which CAE programs are eligible, but most of those don't actually require CAE status, nor does CAE status provide special consideration.

What has changed is the level of effort to apply or renew at least the CAE-R stamp. The designation is now good for 5 academic years, and that is progress. Also, the requirements for the CAE-R designation were easily satisfied by a few people in a matter of several hours mining existing literature and research reports. Both of those were huge pluses for us in submitting the application and reducing the overhead to a more acceptable level given the return on investment.

The real value in this, and the reason we entered into the process is that a few funding opportunities have indicated that applicants' institutions must be certified as a CAE member or else the applicant must document a long list of items to show "equivalence." As our faculty and staff compete for some of these grants, the cost-benefit tradeoff suggested that a small group to go through the process once, for the CAE-R. Of course, this raises the question of why the funding agencies suggest that XX Community College is automatically qualified to submit a grant, while a major university that is not CAE certified (MIT is an example) has to prove that it is qualified!

So, for us, it came down to a matter of deciding whether to stay out of the program as a matter of principle or submit an application to make life a little simpler for all of our faculty and staff when submitting proposals. In the end, several of our faculty & the staff decided to do it over an afternoon because they wanted to make their own proposals simpler to produce. And, our attempt to galvanize some movement away from the CAE program produced huge waves of ...apathy... by other schools; they appear to have no qualms about standing in line for government cheese. Thus, with somewhat mixed feelings by some of us, we got our own block of curd, with an expiration date of 2015.

Let me make very clear -- we are very supportive of any faculty willing to put in the time to develop a program and working to educate students to enter this field. We are also very glad that there are people in government who are committed to supporting that academic effort. We are in no way trying to denigrate any institution or individual involved in the CAE program. But the concept of giving a gold star to make everyone feel good about doing what should be the minimum isn't how we should be teaching, or about how we should be promoting good cybersecurity education.

(And I should also add that not every faculty member here holds the opinions expressed above.)