Workforce Education & Training Working Group
Mission and Objectives
The Software Assurance (SwA) Workforce Education and Training Working Group is composed of members from industry, government, and academia and facilitates both existing and prospective (e.g., students and educational institutions) members of the workforce to improve their production of adequately secure software.
Recent Releases and Updates
The Software Assurance Professional Competency Model is now available.
Free ThreadStrong secure application development e-learning classes are available to U.S. universities. Learn more at the CERT website.
The March/April issue of CrossTalk, sponsored by the DHS Office of Cybersecurity and Communications (CS&C), includes the article"Engaging the Community: Strategies for Software Assurance Curricula Outreach." The work discussed in the article is sponsored by the NCSD Software Assurance Program.
The Software Assurance Curriculum Project provides materials for undergraduate and graduate courses in software assurance. The Master of Software Assurance Reference Curriculum and Undergraduate Course Outlines reports and other resources are available for download. Learn more about this project.
The project has led to two IEEE Computer Society articles on building a career in software assurance. "The Growing Demand for Software Assurance," by Tom Hilburn and Nancy Mead, addresses the various professional opportunities in software assurance and how the Master's Reference Curriculum in Software Assurance, part of the Software Assurance Curriculum project, can help software professionals acquire the necessary skills. "Transitioning from Software to Software Assurance," by Nancy Mead, Julia Allen, and Beth Hawthorne, gives tips for experienced software developers seeking to shift their careers toward the growing field of software assurance. One way is to apply the Master's Reference Curriculum in Software Assurance to on-the-job training. Read the full articles at http://www.computer.org/portal/web/buildyourcareer/careerwatch/hotsectors.
Join the Software Assurance Education group on LinkedIn for discussions about graduate-level software assurance degree programs and tracks and undergraduate courses in software assurance.
Toward an Organization for Software System Security Principles and Guidelines version 1.0 contains an extensive set of software system security principles and guidelines organized in a logical, in-depth fashion. As well as providing coherence, the structure provides grounds for arguing completeness. Historically over thirty years, the variety of origins of principles and guidelines for software system security have resulted in hundreds of items whose relationships to each other were unclear and therefore hard to systematically learn, remember, and teach. This document provides previously lacking coherence and completeness.
Secure Software Engineering Education Example is a description of the first three years of the Masters program in Secure Software Engineering at James Madison University, including a somewhat detailed description of a one semester course in Secure Software Engineering.
Software Assurance: A Curriculum Guide to the Common Body of Knowledge. PDF
is available for download from the Build Security In website.
Backgrounder on Software Assurance: A Curriculum Guide to the Common Body of Knowledge
Contact Information
To learn more about the Software Assurance Workforce Education and Training Working Group, contact the working group chair at software.assurance [at] dhs.gov.
To join the Software Assurance Workforce Education and Training Working Group, see the instructions for joining a working group.
If you or your organization would like to support, speak or contribute to, or otherwise interact with the working group or benefit from its efforts, contact software.assurance [at] dhs.gov.
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