Maths Seminar Series: Joanne Hall, RMIT – Non-technical skills needed by cyber security graduates

Wednesday 13 May 2020 – 11:00am – 12:00pm

The Mathematics Research Lab welcomes Joanne Hall from RMIT to present some of her recent research on graduate skills.

Abstract

Technical cyber-defence is often insufficient to protect a system as most cyber security incidences involve a human who takes an erroneous action or regrettable decision. To address the human factors, cyber security professionals need a range of technical and non-technical skills to enable them to effectively protect cyber-assets. There is research on the non-technical skills needed in ICT and engineering, but little specific to cyber security, and nothing in an Australian context.  To support the job readiness of cyber security graduates it is necessary to identify the non-technical skills that are needed to be competitive in the modern cyber security market.

A brief analysis indicates that some of the most sought after non-technical skills are neither explicitly taught nor explicitly assessed in most Master of Cyber Security degrees in Australia. With more and more Australian universities offering cyber security degrees, the findings of the survey can be used to inform cyber security curriculum design.

J Hall, A Rao, Non-Technical skills needed by cyber security graduates, IEEE Education Conference,  April 2020.

Bio

Joanne Hall is a Senior Lecturer in mathematics and cybersecurity at RMIT. With a background in abstract algebra, her research is on quantum key distribution, post quantum cryptography an recently cybersecurity educaton.  Dr Hall completed her PhD at RMIT in 2011 on quantum key distribution.  She has held research and teaching positions at Charles University in Prague and the Queensland University of Technology. Returning to RMIT in 2017, Joanne enjoyed participating in the graduation ceremony, having missed her own PhD graduation ceremony.