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Thinking Across Stovepipes: Using a Holistic Development
Strategy to Build the Cybersecurity Workforce
Lance J. Hoffman, Diana Burley, and Costis Toregas
The George Washington University
Report GW-CSPRI-2011-8
November 1, 2011
Abstract
This article proposes a holistic approach to developing the cybersecurity workforce based on careful
integration of workforce development strategies into a plan that involves educators, career professionals,
employers, and policymakers. First, it motivates this by describing how other fields such as medicine
have successfully done this and arguing that cyber security is, like medicine, inherently cross-disciplinary
at multiple levels of expertise and performance, making it similar in complexity to the medical profession
and thus a good candidate for some of the solutions developed there. The article then focuses on one
element of a holistic strategy – education -- and discusses the findings of a recent workshop on
cybersecurity education. It then places those findings in the context of the broader discussion and suggests
some practical steps. They encourage computer science educators, human resources professionals, and
the functional experts from disciplines that will attract computer science graduates to think beyond their
“stovepiped” fields and collaborate so that holistic, integrated solutions can be developed, accepted, and
implemented.
Work supported by the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs and the School of Engineering and
Applied Science of the George Washington University
This material is based upon work supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grants DUE-0621334
and CISE-1039564. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are
those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
