An 800-page-plus Cyber Security Body of Knowledge (CyBOK) has been launched in London. It’s aimed at academia, industry and Government alike as a foundation for cyber security education, training and professional practice. It covers the basics of cyber security, whether the ‘human factor’, software or computer hardware.
Launched at the Science Museum, CyBOK has been sponsored by the UK official National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which is a part of GCHQ, and funded by the National Cyber Security Programme with support from the Department for Culture (DCMS). The University of Bristol led on development.
Chris Ensor, the NCSC’s Deputy Director for Growth, said: “This guide will act as a real enabler for developing cyber security as a profession. It’s been developed by the community, for the community and will play a major role in education, training and professional practice.”
You name it, the document 1.0 covers it and defines it: risk management and governance, operating systems, the law, privacy and rights online, computer crime and forensics, data protection, malware and other methods of attacks, and defences; security ops and incident management; web and mobile security; user authentication, and the ‘secure software lifecycle’.
As the document says early on, cyber security is becoming an important element in curricula at all education levels. “However, the foundational knowledge on which the field of cyber security is being developed is fragmented, and as a result, it can be difficult for both students and educators to map coherent paths of progression through the subject. By comparison, mature scientific disciplines like mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology have established foundational knowledge and clear learning pathways.”
The next stage of the CyBOK project will see the guide being used by those designing university education and professional training courses in the UK and globally. CyBOK is overseen by a steering committee comprising international figures from industry, professional bodies and academia. Visit www.cybok.org.
For more about specific ‘knowledge bases’, visit https://www.cybok.org/knowledgebase/.
