Abstract

In recent years, the definition of cybersecurity professional has been diluted to include more individuals, particularly women, to be included. Depending on the definition used, women currently comprise between 11% and 25% of the cybersecurity workforce. While multiple studies have indicated the benefits to diverse teams, research in the cybersecurity area is lacking.This research proposes a framework that uses a modified escape-the-room gamified scenario to measure the effectiveness of cybersecurity teams in technical problem-solving. The framework presents two routes, incident response and penetration testing, the participants can choose. In a preliminary study, this framework is used to show the combination of gender diversity and prior cybersecurity experience and/or cybersecurity knowledge, particularly in women, are found to be significant in reducing the time taken to solve cybersecurity tasks in the incident response, and penetration testing domains.In conclusion, opportunities for extending this research into a large-scale study are discussed, along with other applications of cybersecurity escape-rooms.

Degree

College and Department

Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology; Technology

Rights

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