A new paradigm for information security education at doctoral level

Abstract

The Information Security is one of the fastest growing research areas in the field of Computer science and Information Technology/Systems. However, if research into security is to be successful, then researchers' mindsets have to match and exceed those who engage in intrusive, unlawful and unethical activities in the field of Information Systems and Technology. Security Professionals and for that matter those engaged in research and security product/service development need to be able to 'think like the criminals but not act like them'. Such a task is extremely difficult because unlike criminals/terrorists, Security Professionals thinking is highly conditioned by regulations, law, rules, procedures, documentation, policies, values ethics, and concern for the consequences of undesirable action on those affected. There is of course the danger that if you follow the criminal ways of thinking then you may become tempted to follow their behavior eventually. So, how can the mindsets be trained to enable Security Professionals to think freely without necessarily having to go through experience based learning! How can we develop doctoral programs that specifically target the development of the conceptual mindsets of the researchers! What specific sets of concepts will be useful for addressing these issues! These are questions that will be addressed in this paper. © 2004 by International Federation for Information Processing.