Some facts about the need for cybersecurity professionals
According to Ernst & Young's 2018-2019 international information security survey "Cybersecurity: More than Protection?", about 80% of companies realize that they cannot continue to be limited to standard cybersecurity measures. Therefore, they continue to increase the basic functionality of their security systems, review approaches to improving their cybersecurity architecture, and begin to implement other modern innovative solutions to protect information. Cloud solutions (52%), cyber threat analytics (38%), and mobile computing (33%) are the main areas for investing in cybersecurity in 2020. At the same time, the demand for such specialists is growing at an incredible rate around the world.https://bit.ly/3PhpLc7)
According to Cisco's 2012-2013 research, the demand for cybersecurity specialists in the world is growing three times faster than the demand for other IT professionals.
Has the trend of the need for specialists changed since then?
According to the data published on May 15, 2019 https://bit.ly/3yUuE5t : The staffing problem has become a global issue for the cybersecurity industry, and it is also tending to get worse - the global demand for cybersecurity specialists is now, on average, 12 times higher than the demand for other IT specialists. At the same time, some analysts believe that the cybersecurity industry will develop/expand dynamically over the next thirty years, so the demand for relevant specialists will be significant and long-lasting. Ukraine, with its significant scientific and educational potential in the field of training and use of such personnel, would be well advised to take this trend into account when developing medium- and long-term development concepts and strategies, especially since such a shortage exists in the domestic Ukrainian market.
According to a Canadian study https://bit.ly/3ACKIdD was predicted: In 2021, the number of specialists in this specialization in Canada will reach 28 thousand people, and by 2023, there will be a demand for 53 thousand cybersecurity specialists in Canada alone. The average salary of cybersecurity specialists in Canada is more than $85 thousand per year. Higher-level specialists can earn up to $145 thousand per year.
All the above research results were published before the active phase of hostilities in Ukraine, an integral part of which was the intensification of a new type of terrorism in cyberspace at the level of the aggressor state's special services, which opened up new vulnerabilities of modern information technologies and led to a simultaneous rapid increase in demand for cybersecurity specialists around the world.
Cybersecurity in Ukraine
The rapid actualization of cybersecurity in the EU and the US took place at the end of the last century, but Ukraine, unfortunately, was not among the leaders in this field. In particular, until October 25, 2021, there were only two professions in the classification of professions in Ukraine for the employment of bachelors in cybersecurity, and only from that date, according to European practice and requirements, they were supplemented by 19 relevant professions at once (https://bit.ly/3RrrjSC):
- 2132.2 Developer of information security systems
- 2139.2 Administrator of networks and systems
- 2139.2 Security threat analyst
- 2139.2 Analyst of information security systems and vulnerability assessment
- 2139.2 Security analyst of information and telecommunication systems
- 2139.2 Investigator (in the field of cybersecurity and information protection)
- 2139.2 Forensic expert (in the field of cybersecurity and information protection)
- 2139.2 Forensic criminalist expert (in the field of cybersecurity and information protection)
- 2139.2 Cybercrime investigator
- 2139.2 Specialist in cryptographic protection of information
- 2139.2 Security specialist (information and communication technologies)
- 2139.2 Specialist in support of cyber defence infrastructure
- 2139.2 Cybersecurity incident response specialist
- 2139.2 Specialist in testing information security systems
- 2139.2 Specialist in technical protection of information
- 2139.2 Information security specialist
- 2359.2 Instructor-methodologist in information security and cybersecurity
- 3439 Specialist in the organization of information security
- 3439 Specialist in the organization of protection of information with limited access
It is quite clear that there are simply no specialists in Ukraine today to fill most of these vacancies, which means that for decades to come, we will not see competition between cybersecurity specialists for vacancies in the labour market but rather competition between employers for cybersecurity specialists for available vacancies, as is the case all over the world.
Feature of the educational program 125 - Cybersecurity at KhNU
Specialists in the speciality 125 Cybersecurity at Khmelnytsky National University are trained at the Department of Cybersecurity of the same name under the educational programs Cybersecurity at the first (bachelor's) and second (master's) levels of higher education. Why is this so, and what does it mean?
First of all, the narrow specialization of the department in the speciality 125 Cybersecurity allows the staff of the department not to be scattered and to focus all efforts on continuous improvement of the educational process and other types of work with students of this speciality. As a result, the Department of Cybersecurity in 2021 successfully passed the accreditation of the educational program Cybersecurity of the first (bachelor's) level of higher education (https://bit.ly/3yUVHxv), during which experts from the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance confirmed that the educational program itself, the faculty involved in the program, and the classroom and technical support of the department met the strict requirements of the speciality standard and the needs of the times. This happened at a time when a significant number of Ukrainian universities were denied accreditation and were forced to stop training cybersecurity specialists or receive conditional (temporary) accreditation with a one-year postponement of re-examination.
Secondly, unlike many other higher education institutions, Khmelnytsky National University currently has only one bachelor's degree program in Cybersecurity (https://kb.khmnu.edu.ua/125-kiberbezpeka-bakalavrat/).
This eliminates the problem of limiting the possibilities of further employment of the department's graduates to narrow specializations, which arises when a university offers several specialized educational programs in one speciality.
On the other hand, the fourth part of the study time of the Cybersecurity program is allocated to the formation of an individual educational trajectory, which involves the student's choice of disciplines according to their preferences. This allows the student to choose a specialization and flexibly adjust its formation in the process of studying from the first to the last year, taking into account the knowledge already acquired and changes in life circumstances, if necessary, choosing disciplines to meet the requirements of a particular employer or area of future employment, and, in fact, to master the program of another related speciality in the field of information technology in parallel.
The Department of Cybersecurity of KhNU offers its students the opportunity to form an individual learning path on an annual basis or choose one of the standard recommended paths with in-depth study:
- programming languages and technologies (C, C++, C#, HTML, CSS, PHP, Java, Python, AspNet, Core MVC, MS SQL Server, etc);
- information security technologies (malware analysis, Internet of Things security, digital forensics, ethical hacking, etc.);
- courses with a focus on employer needs (banking security, critical infrastructure security, etc.);
- foreign languages, etc.
The most popular today is the trajectory, which includes the in-depth study of programming languages and technologies. Graduates who have mastered the disciplines of this trajectory, along with traditional cybersecurity positions, successfully work as web programmers, front-end and back-end developers, database designers and administrators, mobile application developers, freelancers, etc., creating effective means of authentication, encryption and protection of confidential information in the designed software systems, testing these systems to identify flaws and potential vulnerabilities, taking into account the requirements of international information security standards, and
Undoubtedly, the list of positions held by graduates of the Department of Cybersecurity will expand rapidly over the years, and we are looking forward to seeing what kind of work in the global information space you, the applicants of the year 2022, will choose for yourself after completing the educational program 125 Cybersecurity of the KNU.
International orientation and support of the educational program Cybersecurity of KNU
Ukraine's integration into a united Europe's economic system can only occur by eliminating existing vulnerabilities and risks in information and cyberspace, as this is where most financial transactions take place and where vast amounts of confidential information are stored.
Understanding the shortcomings and problems of cybersecurity in Ukraine, the European Union and the United States vigorously promote the training of highly qualified cybersecurity specialists in our country, considering the possibilities of their further employment in different countries of the civilized world. International support for education in the speciality 125 Cybersecurity is manifested in the provision of faculties, expensive modern professional equipment and specialized software to higher education institutions, internships, advanced training courses, training programs and training (competitions, contests, hackathons, etc.) for teachers and students of the speciality.
The Department of Cybersecurity of KhNU has developed its educational program Cybersecurity with a focus on training bachelor's degree specialists who can organize and maintain a set of information and cybersecurity measures in various fields of professional activity by the existing risks and possible threats by the requirements of national and international standards and practices, legislative and regulatory framework of Ukraine as a direct participant in the unified European Information Security System.
To ensure that the education of students majoring in 125 Cybersecurity at KhNU meets international standards and norms, the department has created specialized laboratories with the necessary specialized equipment and software, which is annually improved and supplemented with the full support of the university administration, regional employers and foreign partners; a cyber training ground has been deployed; teachers of the department take part in foreign internships and international projects to improve their skills and adopt best practices.
In 2020, a group of teachers of the department underwent a foreign internship at the Uniwersytet Technologiczno-Przyrodniczy (Bydgoszcz, Poland), for 2022 under the international cooperation agreement (https://kb.khmnu.edu.ua/ugoda-pro-spivrobitnycztvo-mizh-hnu-ta-universytetom-u-belsko-byalij/) another internship is planned for the department's faculty at the University of Bielsko-Biala (Bielsko-Biala, Poland).
In 2021, the Department of Cybersecurity took part in the USAID project "Cybersecurity of Ukraine's Critical Infrastructure", which is part of the international project USAID Cybersecurity Activity (https://kb.khmnu.edu.ua/kbksm-uchasnyk-proyektu-usaid-kiberbezpeka-krytychno-vazhlyvoyi-infrastruktury-ukrayiny/), during which the teachers underwent advanced training in Cyber-physical System Security, Foundations of Computer and Network Security, and Web security at Florida International University (https://kb.khmnu.edu.ua/mizhnarodne-navchannya-u-ramkah-proyektu-usaid-kiberbezpeka-krytychno-vazhlyvoyi-infrastruktury-ukrayiny/) and Digital Forensics, Incident Response courses at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana (https://kb.khmnu.edu.ua/vitayemo-vykladachiv-kafedry-z-uspishnym-zakinchennya-kursiv/). For 2022, the teachers plan further training under the USAID program in Security Audit and Risk Management, Penetration Testing, Advanced Malware Course, and Cloud Cyber Security. The acquired knowledge and experience are actively implemented in the educational components of the speciality 125 Cybersecurity.
Teachers of the department are instructors of the international Cisco Academy (http://cisco.khmnu.edu.ua/), take an active part in the international grant project to integrate cybersecurity courses into the curricula of Ukrainian universities of the US Civilian Research and Development Foundation CRDF Global (https://kb.khmnu.edu.ua/vstupnyj-seminar-z-integracziyi-kursiv-iz-kiberbezpeky-v-navchalni-plany-ukrayinskyh-universytetiv/) and are the developers of CRDF Global's own course, "Protecting and Monitoring Computer Networks" (https://kb.khmnu.edu.ua/onlajn-zustrich-z-obgovorennya-rozrobky-kursu-zahyst-ta-monitoryng-kompyuternyh-merezh/), and are also participants in a large number of All-Ukrainian and international programs and projects, the purpose of which is to improve their professional level and the quality of training of higher education students in the speciality 125 Cybersecurity at Khmelnytsky National University,
Students of the Department of Cybersecurity who are taking different courses of study also actively participate in international projects. One of the latest achievements is the recognition of first-year students majoring in Cybersecurity at KNU as the most active participants in the educational course “EU Framework for Exchanging Cybersecurity Information” of the international project “Erasmus +” Jean Monnet module “Integrating the EU cybersecurity framework and policies in Ukraine” (Jean Monnet module: “Integrating the EU cybersecurity framework and policies in Ukraine” - course ‘EU frameworks for exchanging cybersecurity information’).
Continuation of master's studies and double degree program
Students-graduates of the Department of Cybersecurity, after obtaining a bachelor's degree, have the opportunity to continue their studies at the department under the educational and professional program Cybersecurity of the second (master's) level of higher education.
For master's students in the speciality 125 Cybersecurity, the department has a program for obtaining a double master's degree in the EU. This opportunity is provided to applicants for a master's degree in cybersecurity, in particular, by a cooperation agreement between KhNU and the Polish University of Belsko-Biala (https://kb.khmnu.edu.ua/ugoda-pro-spivrobitnycztvo-mizh-hnu-ta-universytetom-u-belsko-byalij/).
If you have any questions, please contact us:
Guarantor of the program Cybersecurity of the first (bachelor's) level of higher education
Candidate of Technical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Cybersecurity Cheshun Viktor Mykolayovych.
Тел.: 097 218 79 57
e-mail: cheshunvn@khmnu.edu.ua.
Guarantor of the program Cybersecurity of the second (master's) level of higher education
Candidate of Technical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Cybersecurity Titova Vira Yuriivna
Phone: 067 380 03 84
e-mail: titovav@khmnu.edu.ua.