Training the cyber security leaders of tomorrow.
It is well accepted that the UK, and indeed the world,
is short of cyber security skills. This shortage applies to everyone, ranging
from the everyday understanding and practice of cyber security by the general
public through to the more sophisticated degree of cyber security awareness
necessary for policymakers and business leaders. I hope the pandemic has
reminded us that society cannot function without experts, and also that we are
short of them.
This was recognised early by the UK government, which
included among the many initiatives it launched off the back of the 2011
National Cyber Security Strategy, funding for two Centres for Doctoral Training
(CDTs) in cyber security, one of which we have been hosting at Royal Holloway,
University of London, since 2013. So what are CDTs, and how do they help to
train new cyber security experts for the UK?
CDTs are four-year PhD programmes. Our CDT funds an annual
cohort of around ten new starters. Royal Holloway’s CDT has thus far recruited
seven cohorts, two of which have now graduated. That’s 20 new experts, 50 on
the way, and we currently have funds to train another 40 over the next four
years. Each cohort engages in a year of multidisciplinary training before each
researcher selects an individual project topic, which they pursue in depth for
the remaining three years. Each researcher is also expected to undertake an
internship with one of our CDT partner organisations. There are four defining
keywords worth expanding on.
There are three significant benefits of the CDTs’
cohort-based approach. Firstly, a PhD can be a long and lonely journey if
studied in isolation. Pursuing a PhD within a cohort can be much more
nurturing, with lifelong friendships likely to emerge. Secondly, developing a
distinctive training programme for a cohort is more effective, and scalable,
than bespoke individual training. And thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, a
cohort brings together individuals with diverse backgrounds and life
experience. We firmly believe that cohorts establish collectives of researchers
who are much more creative than the sum of their parts. As an example, one team
of four CDT researchers won the inaugural Cyber 9/12 UK security policy
competition in 2018.
Our CDT training programme is inherently multidisciplinary.
This recognises that cyber security is not solely an issue of technology. It
also requires an understanding of how individuals, groups and society more
broadly engage with digital technology. Our CDT recruits not just computer
scientists, engineers and mathematicians, but also sociologists, psychologists,
economists and geographers. The training programme exposes them to the likes of
firewalls and encryption, but also to securitisation theory, geopolitics, and
human and social factors. They attend taught courses on Royal Holloway’s
pioneering Information Security masters programme, but also undertake group
exercises such as critiquing national cyber security strategies, designing
campus cyber security awareness campaigns and conducting boardroom simulation
exercises. We want every cyber security expert we train, regardless of
specialism, to appreciate the bigger cyber security picture, and how their
expertise contributes to this picture.
Of course, a PhD is ultimately about research. Our CDT’s
official title is the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s CDT
in Cyber Security for the Everyday. That “everyday” is multifaceted. Firstly,
the research addresses challenges concerning the technologies deployed in
digital systems that people use, sometimes inadvertently, daily. Researchers in
the CDT have been investigating security of software, data protection in cloud
environments, existing security technologies and those that will become
mainstream in the future, such as post-quantum cryptography. However, the
research also addresses the everyday societal experience and practice of
security. Our researchers have been investigating cyber security in the
workplace, the privacy and security implications of health and transport apps,
maritime cyber security, and the establishment of national data embassies.
Finally, the CDT is all about partnerships. One goal of our
CDT is to embed all our CDT researchers within the wider cyber security
community. This begins during the first-year training, especially through a series
of events that we call Cyber Security in the Wild. Each of these involves an
engagement with cyber security practitioners to explore both what their day job
looks like, but also their own professional journeys. We do this through field
trips to different types of cyber security organisation, as well as by
welcoming visitors to our own campus. Our CDT partners also act as hosts for
internships.
These have taken students all around the world to experience
different cyber security cultures, including Amazon Web Services, HP Labs,
Cabinet Office and Nato’s Shape (supreme headquarters allied powers Europe). We
are always seeking new CDT partners, so please do get in touch if you would
like to consider becoming involved in our training programme or hosting CDT
researchers on internships.
Our first CDT cohorts are now fully fledged. CDT graduates
have found employment as cyber security experts in a range of established
security technology companies, government roles and start-ups, while a couple
of others have continued in academia. Providing all the cyber security skills
for the UK’s future needs will require many different interventions, at
different levels. By training tomorrow’s cyber security leaders, we are
confident that the Royal Holloway CDT is playing a very important part of
delivering this
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