Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity Initiative for the Youth

Cybersecurity is a growing and imminent need in our nation and throughout the world, and there is a critical talent shortage. Our Cybersecurity Initiative helps the youth learn best practices for online safety, learn key concepts of cybersecurity basics, and explore career pathways in the cybersecurity field.

Gamified eLearning

Our Gamified eLearning platform educates the youth about online safety, cybersecurity basics, cyber career exploration and more:

  • • Best practices for online safety and cybersecurity basics with a team of superheroes who help youth learn important facts and best defenses for staying safe and secure in the digital world.
  • • Netiquette best practices with a team of superheroes who help youth navigate the digital world in a positive way. Each youth attendee is equipped with the knowledge on how to keep their online life filled with positive connections, friendships and ideas, while avoiding any embarrassing mistakes and negative situations.
  • • Cyber Career Exploration: What kind of smart are you? Youth enhance their self-awareness of their unique strengths and how to leverage these abilities into potential future careers in the cybersecurity industry.
  • • Cyber Leaders: Youth identify and discuss strategies to develop leadership characteristics. Through leadership skills development, youth explore leader characteristics, recognize and learn to enhance these qualities within themselves, and set goals to develop leadership skills to achieve success as future cyber leaders.

Did You Know?

Forbes magazine reports that "According to recent estimates, there will be as many as 3.5 million unfilled positions in the industry by 2021."

 

Advisory Board

Leading cybersecurity experts mentor the youth to provide advice and guidance for future success in the cybersecurity industry and more.

Malek Ben Salem play video

Malek Ben Salem, PhD was a fellow in New America’s Cybersecurity Initiative. Ben Salem is a cybersecurity researcher based in Washington, D.C. She leads a security research team at Accenture Labs, where her research focuses on behavioral biometrics, IoT security, data protection, security analytics, Blockchain, and cloud and mobile security. She has been a co-principal investigator on several DARPA projects, including active authentication and the Integrated Cyber Analysis System (ICAS). Ben Salem’s research has been featured in DarkReading, NeoworkWorld, and the New York Times, among others. She currently helps clients from various industries (critical Infrastructure, resources, financial services, etc.) adopt innovative security technologies to achieve real cyber risk reduction and to proactively adhere to digital ethics principles in order to earn client’s digital trust—going beyond a compliance-driven security approach. She is also developing AI-based security offerings. Ben Salem is deeply skilled in security vision and leadership, c-suite collaboration, research and development, technology strategy, data science, and security innovation. She has authored several peer-reviewed publications and patents.

Lysa Myers play video

Lysa Myers began her tenure in malware research labs in the weeks before the Melissa virus outbreak in 1999. She watched as the Internet grew from small, local bulletin board systems to the World Wide Web, and computer security incidents evolved from virtual urban myth to daily reality. As the landscape has changed, she’s seen how both cybersecurity hiring and education efforts have not quite kept pace, and created a talent gap that continues to widen.

Since then, Myers has used her experiences to help spread awareness of what people can do to maintain an effective security culture. As a Security Researcher for ESET, Vice Chair of CompTIA’s IT Security Community Executive Council, and a frequent contributor to security magazines such as Dark Reading and CSOonline, she continues to advocate for improvements in the security industry.

Chris Kubeckaplay video

Chris CEO of HypaSec. Previously, Chris headed the Information Protection Group, NOC, SOC & joint-international intelligence team for the Aramco family. Helping to recover Aramco from a nation-state attack, implementing digital security and reconnecting international business operations. Responsible for all digital IT and ICS assets throughout the EMEA region (minus KSA) and Latin America. Subsequently, establishing and assisting global digital security teams, standards, security driven legal contracts for secure software development with third parties, the Aramco EU/UK Privacy group with internal and external council and computer emergency response teams. Chris has practical and strategic hands-on experience in several cyber warfare incidents. USAF Space Command, detecting and helping to halt the July 2009 Second Wave attacks from the DPKR against South Korea and helping to recover and re-establish international business operations after the world’s most devastating cyber warfare attack, Shamoon in 2012. Expert advisor and panellist for several governments and parliaments.