Abstract
A cyber ready military is critical to national security. Yet, traditional kinetic warfare techniques for selecting and evaluating combatants do not necessarily apply directly to the abilities necessary to perform as an outstanding cyber warrior. Cyber warfare represents a fundamentally distinct form of warfare, and it is necessary to define the leadership competencies and skills required for cyber warfare to prepare for engagement in the multi-faceted cyberwarfare domain.
The cyber domain is multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary. It integrates the use of computer science, mathematics, economics, law, psychology, engineering, and others. We present an analysis of the skills required for cyber warrior readiness. In actuality, the cyber warrior of the future cannot be described as a single type of individual or single set of training. Rather, the cyber warfare theatre comprises a complex interplay of technologies, strategies, policies, and warriors with vastly varying skillset. Using current literature, we present a multi-dimensional view of cyber warfare abilities and propose evaluations for those abilities based on validated psychometric evaluations.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Change history
16 June 2022
In the originally published version of chapter 21, the name of the author Kirsten Richards and the affiliation of all the authors were presented incorrectly. This has been corrected.
References
Ackerman, P.L.: Determinants of individual differences during skill acquisition: Cognitive abilities and information processing. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 117(3), 288 (1988)
Ackerman, P.L., Cianciolo, A.T.: Ability and task constraint determinants of complex task performance. J. Exp. Psychol. Appl. 8(3), 194 (2002)
Brantly, A., Smeets, M.: Military operations in cyberspace. In: Handbook of Military Sciences, pp. 1–16 (2020)
Butler, S.C.: Refocusing cyber warfare thought. Air Univ Maxwell AFB AL Air Force Research Institution (2013)
Campbell, S.G., O’Rourke, P., Bunting, M.F.: Identifying dimensions of cyber aptitude: the design of the cyber aptitude and talent assessment. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, vol. 59, no. 1, pp. 721–725. SAGE Publications, Los Angeles (2015)
Carretta, T.S., Perry, D.C., Jr., Ree, M.J.: Prediction of situational awareness in F-15 pilots. Int. J. Aviat. Psychol. 6(1), 21–41 (1996)
Cashell, B., Jackson, W.D., Jickling, M., Webel, B.: The economic impact of cyber-attacks. Congressional research service documents, CRS RL32331 (Washington DC), 2 (2004)
Conti, G., Raymond, D.: Leadership of cyber warriors: Enduring principles and new directions. Military Academy West Point NY Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (2011)
Dawson, J., Thomson, R.: The future cybersecurity workforce: going beyond technical skills for successful cyber performance. Front. Psychol. 9, 744 (2018)
Day, A.E.: Leading Air Force Cyber Warriors: Cyber Wing Commander Competencies. Doctoral dissertation, Regent University (2020)
DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, 60, as of March 2017. http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/dictionary.pdf
Dykstra, J., Paul, C.L.: Cyber operations stress survey (COSS): studying fatigue, frustration, and cognitive workload in cybersecurity operations. In: 11th USENIX Workshop on Cyber Security Experimentation and Test ({CSET} 18) (2018)
Eom, J.H., Kim, N.U., Kim, S.H., Chung, T.M. (2012, June). Cyber military strategy for cyberspace superiority in cyber warfare. In: Proceedings Title: 2012 International Conference on Cyber Security, Cyber Warfare and Digital Forensic (cybersec), pp. 295–299. IEEE (2012)
Folks, I.I., Richard, L.: Network Centric Warfare in the Age of Cyberspace Operations. ARMY WAR COLL CARLISLE BARRACKS PA (2011)
Fulp, J.D.: Training the cyber warrior. In: Irvine, C., Armstrong, H. (eds.) Security Education and Critical Infrastructures: IFIP TC11 / WG11.8 Third Annual World Conference on Information Security Education (WISE3) June 26–28, 2003, Monterey, California, USA, pp. 261–273. Springer US, New York, NY (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-35694-5_24
Glass, B.: Job Market Intelligence: Cybersecurity Jobs, 2015. Burning Glass Technologies, Boston, MA (2015)
Hart, S.G.: NASA-task load index (NASA-TLX); 20 years later. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 904–908. Sage publications, Los Angeles, October 2006
Heatherly, C.J., Melendez, I.: Every soldier a cyber warrior. Cyber Defense Rev. 4(1), 63–74 (2019)
Jones, K.S., Namin, A.S., Armstrong, M.E.: The core cyber-defense knowledge, skills, and abilities that cybersecurity students should learn in school: results from interviews with cybersecurity professionals. ACM Trans. Comput. Educ. (TOCE) 18(3), 1–12 (2018)
Jøsok, Ø., Lugo, R., Knox, B.J., Sütterlin, S., Helkala, K.: Self-regulation and cognitive agility in cyber operations. Front. Psychol. 10, 875 (2019). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00875
Leonard, B., Biberman, J.: Utilizing multi‐dimensionality in the workplace: a meta‐study. Managerial Finance (2007)
Li, J.J., Daugherty, L.: Training cyber warriors: what can be learned from defense language training?. RAND NATIONAL DEFENSE RESEARCH INST SANTA MONICA CA (2015)
Malviya, A., Fink, G.A., Sego, L., Endicott-Popovsky, B.: Situational awareness as a measure of performance in cyber security collaborative work. In: 2011 Eighth International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations, pp. 937–942. IEEE, April 2011
McGettrick, A.: Toward curricular guidelines for cybersecurity: Report of a workshop on cybersecurity education and training. Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) (2013). https://www.acm.org/education/TowardCurricularGuidelinesCybersec.pdf
Moore, T., Friedman, A., Procaccia, A.D.: Would a ‘cyber warrior’ protect us: exploring trade-offs between attack and defense of information systems. In: Proceedings of the 2010 New Security Paradigms Workshop, pp. 85–94, September 2010
NATO. (2016, July 9). Warsaw Summit Communiqué. Retrieved from NATO HQ: http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_133169.htm
Newhouse, B., Keith, S.S., Witte, G.: NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg (2016)
O’Connell, M.E.: Cyber security without cyber war. J. Conflict Secur. Law 17(2), 187–209 (2012)
Potter, L.E., Vickers, G.: What skills do you need to work in cyber security? A look at the Australian market. In: Proceedings of the 2015 ACM SIGMIS Conference on Computers and People Research, pp. 67–72, June 2015
Røislien, H.E., Lund, M.S., Knox, B.: Mapping the” Cyber Warrior”: What Skill-Set Does the Cyber Warrior Need?. In: International Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security, p. 373. Academic Conferences International Limited (2014)
Samn, S.W., Perelli, L.P.: Estimating aircrew fatigue: a technique with application to airlift operations. School of Aerospace Medicine Brooks Afb tx (1982)
Sinval, J., Miller, V., Marôco, J.: Openness toward organizational change scale (OTOCS): validity evidence from Brazil and Portugal. PLoS ONE 16(4), e0249986 (2021)
Shoemaker, D., Kohnke, A., Sigler, K.: A guide to the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) cybersecurity workforce framework (2.0). Auerbach Publications (2018)
Slayton, R.: What Is a Cyber Warrior? The Emergence of US Military Cyber Expertise, 1967–2018 (Winter 2021). Texas National Security Review (2021)
Training, US Army, and Doctrine Command. Cyberspace Operations Concept Capability Plan 2016–2028 (2010)
Vieane, A., Funke, G., Gutzwiller, R., Mancuso, V., Sawyer, B., Wickens, C.: Addressing human factors gaps in cyber defense. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, vol. 60, no. 1, pp. 770–773. SAGE Publications, Los Angeles, September 2016
Worley, C.: Hacking the skills shortage a study of the International shortage in Cybersecurity skills. In: Lewis, J.A. (Chair) Hacking the skills shortage A study of the International shortage in Cybersecurity skills [Video file]. Symposium conducted at the meeting of Center for Strategic & International Studies, Washington, DC (2016). https://www.csis.org/events/hacking-skills-shortage
Yamin, M.M., Katt, B.: Cyber security skill set analysis for common curricula development. In: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security, pp. 1–8 (2019)
Yerkes, R.M.: Report of the psychology committee of the national research council. Psychol. Rev. 26(2), 83 (1919)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Ferretti, M.L., Richards, T., Irons, J.G., Richards, K. (2022). The Dimensionality of the Cyber Warrior. In: Moallem, A. (eds) HCI for Cybersecurity, Privacy and Trust. HCII 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13333. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05563-8_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05563-8_21
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-05562-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-05563-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)