Cybersecurity education for military officers

Abstract

Cyber threats are a growing concern for our military, creating a need for cybersecurity education. Current methods used to educate students about cyber, including annual Navy Knowledge Online training, are perceived to be ineffective. The Naval Postgraduate School developed an All hands pilot cybersecurity course with the objective of increasing military officers' cybersecurity awareness. The three of us participated in the ten-week course to assess the delivery of the curriculum. This MBA project is a culmination of our critiques that support whether the course objectives were effectively met. Observations of the course were supplemented with a literature review on cybersecurity education. We found the course did increase our general cybersecurity awareness and introduced us to cyber terminology and concepts. The lectures of the pilot course included excessively in-depth discussions that were not at an All hands level and lab sessions of limited value. Our recommendations include restructuring the course to a maximum of four units by eliminating the lab portion and centering military-relevant discussions on cyber-defense management. For MBA students specifically, we recommend either scheduling this course during quarter one or moving a Joint Professional Military Education course to quarter one and filling the vacated time with the cybersecurity course. The ideal situation for MBA students is if the Graduate School of Business and Public Policy can create and deliver a Business School–tailored version of the cybersecurity course that fulfills the requirements of taking an All hands cybersecurity course.