research-article

Open access

Why Mary Can Hack: Effectively Introducing High School Girls to Cybersecurity

Authors:

Gabriele Costa,

Silvia De Francisci,

Serenella Valiani,

Paolo PrinettoAuthors Info & Claims

ARES '23: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security

Article No.: 71, Pages 1 - 8

https://doi.org/10.1145/3600160.3605009

Published: 29 August 2023 Publication History

All formats PDF

Abstract

The gender gap is one of the main concerns in the IT sector, in general, and in cybersecurity, in particular. Although well known, the problem is multifaceted and some of its root causes may be found in the education system. In the last years, many initiatives have been proposed targeting high-school students that might be interested in cybersecurity. Many of these programs rely on capture-the-flag (CTF) competitions to gradually form technical skills in an entertaining way. Despite these efforts, however, the number of girls that attend and complete these programs is still often unsatisfactory.

In this work, we present the most significant outcomes of CyberTrials, a CTF-based cybersecurity program for Italian high school girls that this year enrolled 941 students. The two main features of CyberTrials are its peculiar organization and its gaming platform, which introduces some crucial novelties w.r.t. other similar initiatives. Both these aspects are presented and discussed in this paper. The results show that our methodology could effectively engage the participants and that when properly organized, CTF-based events have the potential to catalyze the learning process.

References

[1]

Stefania Basiglio, Daniela Del Boca, and Chiara Pronzato. 2023. The Impact of the “Coding Girls” Program on High School Students’ Educational Choices. CESifo Working Paper 10235 (2023), 18.

[2]

David N Beede, Tiffany A Julian, David Langdon, George McKittrick, Beethika Khan, and Mark E Doms. 2011. Women in STEM: A gender gap to innovation. Economics and Statistics Administration Issue Brief 04-11 (2011), 11.

[3]

Jill M Bystydzienski, Margaret Eisenhart, and Monica Bruning. 2015. High school is not too late: Developing girls’ interest and engagement in engineering careers. The Career Development Quarterly 63, 1 (2015), 88–95.

[4]

Ilaria Caponetto, Jeffrey Earp, and Michela Ott. 2014. Gamification and education: A literature review. In European Conference on Games Based Learning, Vol. 1. Academic Conferences International Limited, United Kingdom, 50.

[5]

David Card and A Abigail Payne. 2021. High school choices and the gender gap in STEM. Economic Inquiry 59, 1 (2021), 9–28.

[6]

Kevin Chung. 2017. CTFd. CTFd LLC. https://ctfd.io

[7]

Jason Citron. 2015. Discord. Discord Inc. https://discord.com/

[8]

Cariana J Cornel, Dale C Rowe, and Caralea M Cornel. 2017. Starships and cybersecurity: Teaching security concepts through immersive gaming experiences. In Proceedings of the 18th Annual Conference on Information Technology Education. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 27–32.

Digital Library

[9]

Darina Dicheva, Christo Dichev, Gennady Agre, and Galia Angelova. 2015. Gamification in education: A systematic mapping study. Journal of educational technology & society 18, 3 (2015), 75–88.

[10]

Martin Dougiamas. 2002. Welcome to the Moodle community. Moodle. https://moodle.org

[11]

Ana Ferreira, Silvana Oliveira, Viviane Peçaibes, Bruno Giesteira, and Andreia Pinto de Sousa. 2022. Girls4Cyber: A Game to Promote Awareness and Innovation in Cybersecurity. In HCI International 2022 Posters: 24th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2022, Virtual Event, June 26–July 1, 2022, Proceedings, Part IV. Springer, Berlin, Germany, 481–486.

[12]

Susana González-Pérez, Ruth Mateos de Cabo, and Milagros Sáinz. 2020. Girls in STEM: Is it a female role-model thing?Frontiers in psychology 11 (2020), 2204.

[13]

Government Communications Headquarters. 2023. CyberFirst Girls Competition. The National Cyber Security Centre. Retrieved April 22, 2023 from https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/cyberfirst/girls-competition

[14]

Solomon Hykes. 2013. Docker. Docker, Inc. https://www.docker.com/

[15]

Istituto nazionale di statistica 1926. Istituto nazionale di statistica. Istituto nazionale di statistica. Retrieved May 2, 2023 from https://www.istat.it/

[16]

Monique M Jethwani, Nasir Memon, Won Seo, and Ariel Richer. 2017. “I Can Actually Be a Super Sleuth” Promising Practices for Engaging Adolescent Girls in Cybersecurity Education. Journal of Educational Computing Research 55, 1 (2017), 3–25.

[17]

Lydia Koh. July 18, 2019. Cybersecurity competition for females in Singapore, CTF creates opportunity and diversity. The Independent Singapore. Retrieved April 26, 2023 from https://theindependent.sg/cybersecurity-competition-for-females-in-singapore-ctf-creates-opportunity-and-diversity/

[18]

Joscha Legewie and Thomas A DiPrete. 2014. The high school environment and the gender gap in science and engineering. Sociology of Education 87, 4 (2014), 259–280.

[19]

Kees Leune and Salvatore J. Petrilli. 2017. Using Capture-the-Flag to Enhance the Effectiveness of Cybersecurity Education. In Proceedings of the 18th Annual Conference on Information Technology Education (Rochester, New York, USA) (SIGITE ’17). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 47–52. https://doi.org/10.1145/3125659.3125686

Digital Library

[20]

LinuxServer.io 2021. Webtop. LinuxServer.io. https://github.com/linuxserver/docker-webtop

[21]

Kai Marquardt. 2022. Enhancing Girls’ Feeling of Belonging to Computer Science: Possibilities of Interdisciplinary Online Courses to Increase Diversity of Learning. In Proceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Vol. 2 (Dublin, Ireland) (ITiCSE ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 644–645. https://doi.org/10.1145/3502717.3532108

Digital Library

[22]

Antonio Martorana. 2022. Investigating the Experiences of Female CTF Players. Ph. D. Dissertation. Carnegie Mellon University.

[23]

Allison H Master and Andrew N Meltzoff. 2020. Cultural stereotypes and sense of belonging contribute to gender gaps in STEM.Grantee Submission 12, 1 (2020), 152–198.

[24]

Lucas McDaniel, Erik Talvi, and Brian Hay. 2016. Capture the flag as cyber security introduction. In 2016 49th hawaii international conference on system sciences (hicss). IEEE, IEEE Computer Society, USA, 5479–5486.

[25]

Maria Teresa Morana and Simonetta Sagramora. 2022. Focus “Le carriere femminili in ambito accademico” (in Italian). Ministero dell’istruzione, Roma, RM, Italy. http://ustat.miur.it/media/1218/focus_carrierefemminili_universit%C3%A0_2022.pdf

[26]

Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Qing Zeng, Venkata Rajasekhar Telaprolu, Abhishek Padmanabhuni Ayyappa, and Brenda Eschenbrenner. 2014. Gamification of education: a review of literature. In HCI in Business: First International Conference, HCIB 2014, Held as Part of HCI International 2014, Heraklion, Crete, Greece, June 22-27, 2014. Proceedings 1. Springer, Berlin, Germany, 401–409.

[27]

Women’s Society of Cyberjutsu. 2018. CGA Competition Teams. Cyberjutsu Girls Academy. Retrieved April 26, 2023 from https://womenscyberjutsu.org/mpage/CGA_Team

[28]

Charlie Osborne and Steve Morgan. 2022. Women in Cybersecurity 2022 Report. Cybersecurity Ventures. Retrieved April 29, 2023 from https://cybersecurityventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Women-In-Cybersecurity-2022-Report-Final.pdf

[29]

Elena Prieto-Rodriguez, Kristina Sincock, Regina Beretta, Karen Blackmore, Juanita Todd, Erica Wanless, Sarah John, and Anna Giacomini. 2022. Investigating the Impact of an Outreach Intervention on Girls’ STEM Identity Formation. International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology 14, 2 (2022), 183–206.

[30]

Catherine Riegle-Crumb and Karisma Morton. 2017. Gendered expectations: Examining how peers shape female students’ intent to pursue STEM fields. Frontiers in psychology 8 (2017), 329.

[31]

Reshma Saujani. 2023. Summer Immersion Programs. Girls Who Code. Retrieved April 22, 2023 from https://girlswhocode.com/programs/summer-immersion-program

[32]

Ambareen Siraj. 2022. AWS Security GameDay. Women in CyberSecurity. Retrieved April 24, 2023 from https://www.wicys.org/events/aws-security-gameday/

[33]

Cecilia Stajano and Elisabetta Gramatica. 2014. Coding Girls. Fondazione Mondo Digitale. Retrieved May 2, 2023 from https://www.mondodigitale.org/progetti/coding-girls

[34]

Jeff Stern, Emily Reid, and Kari Bancroft. 2015. Teaching Introductory Computer Science for a Diverse Student Body: Girls Who Code Style (Abstract Only). In Proceedings of the 46th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Kansas City, Missouri, USA) (SIGCSE ’15). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 705. https://doi.org/10.1145/2676723.2678291

Digital Library

[35]

Heidrun Stoeger, Xiaoju Duan, Sigrun Schirner, Teresa Greindl, and Albert Ziegler. 2013. The effectiveness of a one-year online mentoring program for girls in STEM. Computers & Education 69 (2013), 408–418.

Digital Library

[36]

Edith Cowan University. 2022. Girls’ Programming Network. ECU’s School of Science. Retrieved April 26, 2023 from https://www.ecu.edu.au/schools/science/events-and-activities/computing-and-security-discipline/girls-programming-network

[37]

Ming-Te Wang and Jessica L Degol. 2017. Gender gap in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM): Current knowledge, implications for practice, policy, and future directions. Educational psychology review 29 (2017), 119–140.

Cited By

Blažič ABlažič B(2024)Toward effective learning of cybersecurity: new curriculum agenda and learning methodsJournal of Cybersecurity10.1093/cybsec/tyae01810:1Online publication date: 15-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1093/cybsec/tyae018
Ferraro GMaunero NMontegiove SPrinetto P(2024)The Big Game: The Italian Avenue of Attack to Cybersecurity Skill ShortageThe Combined Power of Research, Education, and Dissemination10.1007/978-3-031-73887-6_2(19-34)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-73887-6_2
Toccafondi NBilancini EBoncinelli L(2024)Learning CyberSecurity with Story-Driven CTF Challenges: CyberTrials 2023Higher Education Learning Methodologies and Technologies Online10.1007/978-3-031-67351-1_21(307-322)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67351-1_21

Index Terms

Why Mary Can Hack: Effectively Introducing High School Girls to Cybersecurity
1. Security and privacy
  1. Human and societal aspects of security and privacy
    1. Social aspects of security and privacy

Recommendations

Game based Cybersecurity Training for High School Students
SIGCSE '18: Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

Cybersecurity is critical to the national infrastructure, federal and local government, military, industry, and personal privacy. To defend the U.S. against the cyber threats, a significant demand for skilled cybersecurity workforce is predicted in ...
Capture the Flag Unplugged: an Offline Cyber Competition
SIGCSE '17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

In order to meet the cybersecurity workforce demand, it is important to raise cybersecurity interest among the youth. Just like ACM programming competitions, Capture the Flag (CTF) competitions allow students to learn cybersecurity skills in a fun and ...
Motivating High School Girls to Study Computer Science
ITiCSE '19: Proceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

This research study aims to identify design strategies, instructional models and technological tools (e.g., educational games) that can be used to motivate high school girls to pursue computer science (CS) education. Part of this study, an educational ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

ARES '23: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security

August 2023

1440 pages

ISBN:9798400707728

DOI:10.1145/3600160

Copyright © 2023 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 29 August 2023

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article
Research
Refereed limited

Funding Sources

Unione Europea Next Generation EU
Ministero dell'Università e della Ricerca

Conference

ARES 2023

ARES 2023: The 18th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security

August 29 - September 1, 2023

Benevento, Italy

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 228 of 451 submissions, 51%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

3
Total Citations
View Citations
972
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)847
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)73

Reflects downloads up to 29 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Blažič ABlažič B(2024)Toward effective learning of cybersecurity: new curriculum agenda and learning methodsJournal of Cybersecurity10.1093/cybsec/tyae01810:1Online publication date: 15-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1093/cybsec/tyae018
Ferraro GMaunero NMontegiove SPrinetto P(2024)The Big Game: The Italian Avenue of Attack to Cybersecurity Skill ShortageThe Combined Power of Research, Education, and Dissemination10.1007/978-3-031-73887-6_2(19-34)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-73887-6_2
Toccafondi NBilancini EBoncinelli L(2024)Learning CyberSecurity with Story-Driven CTF Challenges: CyberTrials 2023Higher Education Learning Methodologies and Technologies Online10.1007/978-3-031-67351-1_21(307-322)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67351-1_21

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

HTML Format

View this article in HTML Format.

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

Figures

Tables

Media

View Table of Conten