This project is addressing the question of why there are few women in the growing cybersecurity profession. One of the first exposures to cybersecurity for young people is often a cybersecurity competition, offered at the high school and college levels. Most of these competitions have a "male" focus, based on military "capture the flag" principles. As a result, very few females attend them. The purpose of this project is to develop a female-friendly cybersecurity competition, which is based on three concepts: (1) an alternative view of cybersecurity, using "protect", "use" and "analyze" approaches; (2) systems and data in the healthcare environment where security and privacy are increasingly important; and (3) a competition designed by university students (male and female) for high-school students. The project integrates the development of the competition into existing courses. Marymount University is the location for this project: it has both healthcare and information technology programs in the same school and a diverse student body that is also 70% female. For the first competition, students, and their teachers, are invited to attend a summer camp to cybersecurity principles and practices, with the competition at the end of the camp. University students act as mentors and invited speakers present cybersecurity as a career. Student workers then act as mentors for local area teachers providing them with gender-neutral materials as they prepare other students for a second stand-alone cybersecurity competition. Assessment includes the perceptions of students (male and female) to the cybersecurity field before and after the competitions.
EDU: Developing a "Protect", "Use" and "Analyze" Approach to Cybersecurity Competitions in the Healthcare Environment (PUNCCH)