Tackling the cybersecurity workforce gap with tailored cybersecurity study programs in Central and Eastern Europe

Digitalization of society brought improvement in many aspects of life but it also brought new cybersecurity challenges. The number of sophisticated, targeted cyber attacks is increasing, which requires constant improvements in Cybersecurity education. Despite this pressing need, the cybersecurity workforce gap is getting bigger. This paper presents a new approach for dynamic cybersecurity curriculum development that utilizes keyword extraction from various sources such as job ads, courses, and curricula with machine learning to quantify curriculum alignment with cybersecurity industry demands and address the workforce gap. The analysis illustrates curricula in the Central East Europe (CEE) region, maps cyber security job ads to curricula, and quantifies coverage of courses, industry, and reference framework topics based on keyword matching. The case study conducted with curricula from CEE illustrates coverage according to the ENISA's European Cybersecurity Skills Framework (ECSF) roles and optimization progress after adjustment application. The results demonstrate the importance of dynamic curriculum updates for academic institutions including cybersecurity workforce gap reduction and lack of real progress towards alignment with ECSF.