Generating Interest in Cybersecurity Through High School Digital Forensics Education

Pape, P. R., & Hamilton, J. (2015). Generating Interest in Cybersecurity Through High School Digital Forensics Education. 7th Annual Southeastern Cyber Security Summit. Huntsville, AL.

This paper provides a look at the author's experiences and approach to teaching a varying range of students, from high school to those currently working in the eld of digital foren- sics. With the increasing need for more cybersecurity pro- fessionals, it is important to expose students as soon as pos- sible to the concepts of cybersecurity and the potential de- gree options that would allow the students to pursue jobs in the eld. Though not limited to high school students, we will discuss the curriculum that we use when teaching high school students and other relative newcomers to the con- cepts of cybersecurity and digital forensics. Digital forensics is a relatively low-cost entry point to teaching new students about the eld of cybersecurity and this makes it a great place for interested students to start. We combine freely available tools and operating systems with hands-on collab- orative experience to reinforce discussions about various as- pects of digital forensics and cybersecurity in general. Using our previous experiences with both high schoolers and pro- fessionals, this paper presents a curriculum for teaching high school students digital forensics in an outreach capacity.