Cybersecurity Education Still Poor In The United States

Cybersecurity education in the United States is still weak, a research revealed. Despite the increasing threats brought by skilled cybercriminals, universities in the country are still lagging behind.

According to CIO, hacks of high-profile website have become common in the recent years scaring businesses and agencies about the information they store online. Many have improved the security features on their websites but cybercriminals prove that they can get into any form of security.

The study conducted by CloudPassage revealed that a look into 122 universities in the US showed that they had poor performance in terms of cybersecurity education. "In a world of escalating threats and attacks -- universities have a responsibility to address security with their students," CloudPassage CEO Robert Thomas.

It was further disclosed in the study that the top 10 computer science programs in the US do not include a cybersecurity course. Only three schools reportedly require students to take a cybersecurity course to graduate.

Thomas explained that these educational institutions should require cybersecurity training for the students. He noted that this is important to provide better security for various websites.

"There needs to be a fundamental shift in the cybersecurity paradigm," Thomas said. "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 market."

Despite this poor output, Carnegie Mellon Security and Privacy Institute director David Brumley told SC Magazine that the educational institution is serious in arming students with the necessary information and skills on cybersecurity.

Brumley said that the Carnegie Mellon University has more than 50 courses on cybersecurity and privacy. "CMU believes security is fundamental, and has created an entire University-level institute called CyLab to bring together end-to-end expertise to help solve today's security and privacy challenges," he added.