Interview with WP2 leader from Brno University of Technology, CZ

Please provide a short description of you (who you are, what organisation/university you are working for and what your role is in REWIRE project).

My name is Sara Ricci and I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic. My research interests are theoretical cryptography, data privacy and security. I am currently involved in the SPARTA project as a Task Leader in WP9 on cybersecurity training and awareness and an active member of Cyber Competence Network. In the REWIRE project, I am the leader of WP2.

Which is the objective of the WP2 which you are leading?

WP2 is the starting point for the REWIRE project. It deals with the status quo of cybersecurity education and the development of a cybersecurity skills strategy.

What are the overall results of such WP and the results already achieved?

WP2 is approaching its end. The contribution of the WP is threefold. Firstly, we ran an analysis of shortages, gaps, and mismatching affecting cybersecurity education from Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental angles. In this way, we could identify what should be highlighted in the lifetime of the project. We were able to produce a conference paper accepted in ARES-ETACS workshop in 2021 and we are currently extending it to a journal paper.

Secondly, we reviewed the state-of-the-art of cybersecurity sectoral skills and designed 3 methodologies to anticipate future skills needs. We tried to understand the discrepancy between the skills taught in academia and the ones required in the job market. In this case, we are planning to make accessible a web application allowing users to run their own skills analysis.

And now, we are dealing with the design of the skills strategy which will be an integral part of the European Cybersecurity Blueprint.

Are these analysis’ results matching the results from related projects, namely CONCORDIA, ECHO, SPARTA and CyberSec4Europe?

All WP2 results are based on the pilots’ findings. The pilots give valuable inputs with synchronous results. It is important to note that the pilots created the Cyber Competence Network to facilitate the sharing of information and several members of this network belong to the REWIRE project.

What was the methodology followed to anticipate future needs? What has this analysis together with the following methodology resulted in?

We have to consider that cybersecurity is an area continuously in development, therefore a methodology needs to be dynamic.

We proposed to use a machine learning algorithm that allows identifying the most requested skills in work roles. We came up with an extendable database of 255 job ads that can be filtered and analysed on the demand. This will be soon accessible through a web application where users can upload job ads and run analyses.

What does the Cybersecurity Skills Strategy consist of? Please elaborate on this.

The Cybersecurity Skills Strategy is driven by the previous gap analyses and consists of strategic objectives allowing to produce required cybersecurity actions. For instance, we could identify the need for a rebranding and expansion of cybersecurity education which can be achieved by early-age cybersecurity training. More actions are proposed per each objective.

For more information:

Article: Ricci S, Janout V, Parker S, Jerabek J, Hajny J, Chatzopoulou A, Badonnel R. PESTLE Analysis of Cybersecurity Education. In The 16th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security 2021 Aug 17 (pp. 1-8), available at this link: https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3465481.3469184

Participation of Edmundas Piesarskas, REWIRE representative, and Sara Ricci, leader of the section and presenter of the PESTLE article, in ARES-ETACS conference in the Education, Training and Awareness in Cybersecurity panel section with the 4 pilots.

ETACS program at this link: https://2021.ares-conference.eu/

Article from REWIRE “PESTLE Analysis on Cybersecurity Education results of the REWIRE project presented at the ARES Conference”: https://rewireproject.eu/rewire-pestle-analysis-on-cybersecurity-education-results-at-the-ares-conference/