The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is adding new cybersecurity micro-challenges to its Cyber Careers Pathway Tool, which will give people interested in a career in cybersecurity the ability to interactively explore career pathways.
CISA’s micro-challenges provide an opportunity to experience first-hand the knowledge, skills, and tasks performed in top cybersecurity workforce roles. The new micro-challenges will be available for K-12 students and individuals looking to reskill or transition from non-cybersecurity careers.
The interactive tool housing the micro-challenges enables an individual to explore the 52 work roles in the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Cybersecurity Workforce Framework.
As a new feature within the Cyber Careers Pathway Tool, the micro-challenges consist of 14 hands-on experiences that allow users to complete several core cybersecurity workforce tasks while exploring the knowledge and skills necessary to complete the tasks.
Users are led through an interactive learning environment and are provided information about the workforce role and cybersecurity education, training, and career opportunities once the challenge is completed.
“Helping individuals see the opportunities, challenges, and rewards of a cybersecurity career, especially K-12 students, is critically important to CISA,” CISA Acting Chief Learning Officer, Chris Lein, said in a press release.
He explained that micro-challenges can help prospective workers understand the breadth of cybersecurity careers, demystify some of the core tasks for the workforce roles, and enable all users to see themselves in a cybersecurity workforce role.
“CISA is focused on developing a robust pipeline of highly skilled cybersecurity professionals to meet the workforce demands of today and the future,” Lein said.
The micro-challenges are aligned to ten cybersecurity careers outlined in the NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework: Technical Support Specialist, System Administrator, Network Operations Specialist, Systems Security Analyst, Database Administrator, Data Analyst, Cyber Defense Analyst, Cyber Defense Incident Responder, Vulnerability Analyst, and Law Enforcement/Counterintelligence Forensics Analyst.
