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Anyone paying attention to cybersecurity news in the past decade knows that one potential major security concern around the corner is the potential for quantum computing to become a full-fledged reality, and, as a result, older encryption algorithms will become easily defeated. Fortunately, the cryptography arena began working on replacement ciphers and has already produced capabilities that are quantum-proof. This is a great example of having a next-generation security mindset, and this is an element professors need to include in the classroom. We must do a good job at preparing our students for what they will encounter in the real world today and teach them to be forward-thinking so they can create the technologies that will keep our networks safe a decade from now. 

Anticipating Future Attacks 

A great methodology in training someone to protect networks is to look beyond current methodologies and known signatures and refocus on anticipating what the next attempted attack will be and how it will unfold. This is where a measure of creativity, combined with critical thinking skills, comes into play. When students are taught to think outside the box and consider potential attack vectors as yet unseen, they will be able to more easily detect what others are not looking for. Law enforcement agents are often taught to think like a criminal and consider the modus operandi of potential subjects for this same reason. They want to find the criminal before they can commit another crime. We need the same thing in cybersecurity. Professors should be training their students how to anticipate future attacks. 

Quantum-Resistant Cryptography 

One area of anticipation experts have already done well in is the development of cryptographic ciphers that will be able to withstand attacks from quantum computers. Quantum computers are not yet a full-fledged reality, but one can anticipate that, if and when they become the norm, hackers will use them to attempt to break encrypted content with the hopes of gaining access to sensitive plaintext data. This is the level of anticipation professors should be pushing their students to consider. What is the next big technology that will disrupt current security mechanisms? What is the next type of attack hackers will attempt now that so many other security mechanisms are in place? Forward thinking will send the hackers looking for easier targets or completely stop them in their tracks. 

Beyond Common Best Practices 

Stepping away from common best practice models can also be an ally in the next-generation mindset. Students are typically taught about the need for layered security from the demarcation point all the way to the individual desktop. This is good. But hackers already know that this is the standard methodology, and they have adjusted their attacks to suit the stronger perimeters on most networks. Many cyber criminals have reverted to a social engineering methodology of email spoofing and phishing with the hopes of catching a user off guard long enough that they will click a malicious link. Oftentimes, these links will download software directly to the user’s computer and establish a connection back to a waiting hacker who has immediate internal access. 

Forward-Thinking Solutions in the Classroom 

There are two forward-thinking ways to address this issue in the classroom. First, professors should teach students to block outbound activity to untrusted locations. Most networks are configured to allow stateful connections, with outbound connections considered safe. This is fine if all connections are actually safe, but when the outbound connection downloads malicious software, it is a major problem. Students can learn to block very sophisticated future attacks by simply limiting outbound connections to trusted locations. The second forward-thinking security method is to improve user training on how to spot and report malicious emails. Some of these attempts are quite obvious with poor grammar and spelling, but others have become very well crafted. An easy method students can be trained to use is to look at the origin of the email instead of the message content. Email servers have become increasingly locked down and restrictive, forcing hackers to more recognizable origins, and this is the weak link in their chain, making an analysis of the email origin the easiest way to spot a fake message.  

Leveraging AI for Advanced Detection 

The final method to consider here is the use of AI to add to the already used heuristic models. Most computer science students learn about how heuristics in antivirus or intrusion detection systems function by looking for suspicious behavior in an application or connection. Heuristic software has been programmed to look past pre-programmed signatures for activity that is out of the ordinary. For example, a TCP packet with every flag set is a good sign of a misconfiguration or an intentional modification of the packet to achieve a particular nefarious goal. Heuristics would catch these types of modifications, but are limited in the level of advanced detection capabilities as compared to machine learning. 

AI's Role in Cybersecurity Education 

Professors should help their students understand that an AI engine can bring much more sophistication and analysis to bear because of its access to huge databases full of malicious and safe files. AI can learn to recognize subtle statistical anomalies and respond immediately. A human could detect the same type of activity but would take significantly longer to determine the threat, thus increasing the response time. Utilizing AI as a method of forward-thinking can help us detect more novel or obfuscated styles of attacks that could slip past other methodologies. 

The goal here is to train our students to think outside of the box and consider the possibilities of where the attacker may strike next, what tools they may use, and what may become their ultimate target. It is easy to assume that a database full of nuclear secrets would be a target for a nation-state actor, and we would want to use every available resource to stop the criminal before they get close. But we should also consider the disparate bits of personal information in many different systems that, if combined, could give an attacker a full picture of an individual’s life. There are many variables here for a professor to consider, but teaching your students to think along these lines will help them stay one step ahead of the next attack.