Non-Technical skills needed by cyber security graduates

Technical cyber-defence is often insufficient to protect a system as most cyber security incidences involve a human who takes an erroneous action or regrettable decision. To address the human factors, cyber security professionals need a range of technical and non-technical skills to enable them to effectively protect cyber-assets. There is research on the non-technical skills needed in ICT and engineering, but little specific to cyber security, and nothing in an Australian context. To support the job readiness of cyber security graduates it is necessary to identify the non-technical skills that are needed to be competitive in the modern cyber security market.To identify the non-technical skills needed or looked for by the Australian cyber security industry we ran an anonymous online survey. A range of demographic data was collected including gender, location, and role. Survey participants were asked about their use of non-technical skills, and the non-technical skills they seek when hiring junior staff. This paper reports on the most frequently sought after non-technical skills. A brief analysis indicates that some of the most sought after non-technical skills are neither explicitly taught nor explicitly assessed in most Master of Cyber Security degrees in Australia.With more and more Australian universities offering cyber security degrees, the findings of the survey can be used to inform cyber security curriculum design.