Cybersecurity Curriculum

Competency: Collect, analyze, manage, and mitigate threats and vulnerabilities using evidence-based decisions related to cybersecurity.

Key Skills:

• Compare and contrast common threat actors and motivations
• Identify and describe common threat vectors and attack surfaces
• Identify and describe cyber-related vulnerabilities
• Analyze indicators of malicious activity
• Explain the purpose of mitigation techniques used to secure the enterprise
• Conduct assessments of threats and vulnerabilities
• Determine deviations from acceptable configurations, enterprise or local policy
• Assess risk levels
• Develop and/or recommend appropriate mitigation countermeasures in operational and nonoperational situations
• Define and provide examples of evidence-based decision making
• Transform data into insights and make data-informed decisions

Competency: Integrate and use fundamental information and emerging best practices about security architecture and technology to address.

Key Skills:

• Compare and contrast security implications of different architecture models
• Describe and apply security principles to safeguard enterprise infrastructure
• Compare and contrast data protection concepts and strategies
• Explain the importance of resilience and recovery in security architecture
• Identify common programming languages used in cybersecurity, and describe their capabilities along with scenarios in which they are best used
• Compare and contrast various types of security controls
• Explain the importance of using appropriate cryptographic solutions

Competency: Design and perform cybersecurity tasks following operations’ workflows, legal guidelines, and within established technology and leadership structures.

Key Skills:

• Apply common security techniques to computing resources
• Explain the security implications of proper hardware, software, and data asset management
• Describe activities associated with vulnerability management
• Provide examples of effective security alerting and monitoring concepts and tools
• Illustrate how enterprise capabilities can be used to enhance security
• Describe ways to implement and maintain identity and access management
• Explain the importance of automation and orchestration related to secure operations
• Identify and describe incident response activities, and explain what makes some more effective than others
• Evaluate processes and tools for acquiring, organizing, interpreting, and managing data
• Analyze data, measure impact, and make projections
• Identify and correct biases in data collection and analysis
• Choose and employ data sources to support an investigation
• Explain the importance of change management processes and their impact on security

Competency: Design, implement, manage, and evaluate cybersecurity programs and projects using a systems-thinking perspective.

Key Skills:

• List and describe the role of the different components that ensure effective security governance
• Describe and illustrate the risk management process
• Research and describe the processes associated with third-party risk assessment and management
• Summarize key indicators of effective security compliance
• Explain types and purposes of audits and assessments
• Implement security awareness practices in real-world scenarios

Competency: Use defensive measures and information collected from a variety of sources to identify, analyze, and report events that occur or might occur within the network to protect information, information systems, and networks from threats.

Key Skills:

• Analyze threat information from multiple sources, disciplines, and agencies across the Intelligence Community
• Synthesize and place intelligence information in context; draw insights about the possible implications
• Analyze collected information to identify vulnerabilities and potential for exploitation
• Apply current knowledge of one or more regions, countries, non-state entities, and/or technologies
• Identify and assess the capabilities and activities of cybersecurity criminals or foreign intelligence entities; produce findings to help initialize or support law enforcement and counterintelligence investigations or activities

Competency: Design, develop and deploy incident response, investigation workflows, and improvement plans.

Key Skills:

• Develop and implement a plan to collect information about an incident
• Map the timeline of the incident
• Assess potential remediation actions
• Implement remediation
• Communicate with affected stakeholders
• Ensure improved security post-remediation

Competency: Integrate relevant policies, standards, frameworks, and best practices into cybersecurity initiatives.

Key Skills:

• Assess, compare, and recommend additions and extensions to existing federal and international cyber policies
• Develop an internal cyber threat posture and response policy
• Compare the history of policies related to cybersecurity, information collection and security, and cyber weapons
• Analyze the compliance of countries’ actions with existing cyber treaties and policies
• Identify and assess cybersecurity frameworks

Competency: Communicate complex cybersecurity concepts, ideas, and results through multiple channels to diverse internal and external audience.

Key Skills:

• Communicate technical cybersecurity concepts to nontechnical audiences with a goal toward promoting common understanding and inspiring commitment to response and action
• Summarize and present risk analysis, threat analysis, and threat mitigation plans to stakeholders
• Describe technical concepts at a range of levels of sophistication (layperson, student, professional, expert)
• Communicate cybersecurity concepts clearly to different audiences

Competency: Foster effective collaboration within and across public, private, and nonprofit organizations to address systemic issues that cannot be addressed via individual action alone.

Key Skills:

• Engage in active listening
• Identify and demonstrate collaborative problem-solving, decision-making, and consensus-finding skills
• Identify and demonstrate facilitation skills that foster inclusivity and trust
• Describe and provide examples of conflict resolution and negotiation strategies
• Identify key principles of intercultural collaboration, and demonstrate those principles in practice
• Analyze private-public partnerships (PPP) and identify collaboration challenges and possible solutions to those challenges

Competency: Collect, analyze, manage, and visualize data to make evidence-based decisions related to cybersecurity.

Key Skills:

• Define and provide examples of evidence-based decision making
• Identify key problems, opportunities, and research questions in cybersecurity
• Evaluate processes and tools for acquiring, organizing, interpreting, and managing data
• Find and use public datasets
• Analyze data, measure impact, and make projections
• Visualize data to tell compelling stories
• Identify and correct biases in data collection and analysis
• Transform data into insights and make data-informed decisions