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2018 NATIONAL CYBERSECURITY CAREER AWARENESS WEEK:

EVALUATION SUMMARY

National Cybersecurity Career Awareness Week (NCCAW) focuses local, regional, and national interest to 

inspire, educate, and engage citizens to pursue careers in cybersecurity. NCCAW takes place during 

November’s National Career Development Month. Each day of the campaign provides an opportunity to 

learn about the contributions and innovations of cybersecurity practitioners and the plethora of job 

opportunities that can be found when exploring cybersecurity as a career choice. During the week, learners 

of all ages, educators, parents, employers, and the community participate in a national recognition of how 

cybersecurity plays a vital role in the lives of Americans and how building a national cybersecurity 

workforce enhances America’s national security and promotes economic prosperity. 

Key Messaging 

• Create excitement around increasing public awareness and engagement in building a strong 

cybersecurity workforce.

• Emphasize the demand and opportunities in the field of cybersecurity.

• Increase awareness around the multiple career options within the field of cybersecurity.

• Highlight the numerous pathways to enter the cybersecurity career field.

• Showcase resources and programs, including those that increase participation of women, 

minorities, veterans, persons with disabilities, and other underrepresented populations in the 

cybersecurity workforce.

Highlights 

EVENTS: Over 200 engagements directly impacting over 7500 people, in 43 states and the District of 

Columbia and Puerto Rico. Activities were also held in Bengaluru, Karnataka-India and Halifax, Nova 

Scotia-Canada.

SOCIAL MEDIA: A variety of videos, webinars, blog posts, Tweets, and Twitter Chats were broadcast 

throughout the week highlighting the opportunities for a career in cybersecurity.

Activities 

A diverse and creative array of events and activities occurred throughout the country during NCCAW, 

including company open houses, forums, discussions, speaker events, career fairs, and presentations at 

schools and community and technical colleges. 

States, local government, local educational agencies, and cybersecurity/IT organizations shared 

information to their own constituents.

A wide range of resources and interactive activities were developed by multiple stakeholders and added to 

the NCCAW Toolkit on the NICE NCCAW website.
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Industry had their employees share their 

story about a career in cybersecurity
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Partners used social media to promote NCCAW.
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Partners developed resources for participants to engage in during NCCAW

National Cybersecurity Career Awareness Week is here!

#CYBERCAREERWEEK | #MYCYBERJOB

FREE RESOURCES FOR LEARNERS

National Cybersecurity Career Awareness Week (NCCAW), brought to you by the 

National Initiative for Cybersecurity (NICE), is an exciting way to increase awareness 

about careers in cybersecurity and help build a national cybersecurity workforce to 

enhance America’s security and promote economic prosperity.

Visit the NCCAW Toolkit for resources to help you encourage awareness and 

exploration of cybersecurity careers. In addition, explore some fantastic resources below 

to introduce students and young adults to the cybersecurity field.

Nepris: Interactive Cybersecurity Career Virtual Engagements

November 12-17, 2018

Bring your classroom to one of several online cybersecurity career 

presentations. Learn from professionals in the field. Have students 

ask questions and learn about what a career in cybersecurity includes 

and what pathways are possible.

• Cyber Ranges & Assessment Tools: Lee Rossey, SimSpace 

• Becoming a Cybersecurity Systems Engineer: Tina Caldarone, Cisco Systems 

• How to Protect Against Cyber Threats: Mark Loepker, Cyber Center for Education & 

Innovation 

• How to Make Cybersecurity Your Career: Michael Telfeyan, Samsung Austin 

Semiconductor 
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• Preparing for your Future Cyber Career: Chuck Gardner, National Integrated Cyber

Education Research Center 

• How to Become a #CyberBoss: Tina Williams-Koroma, TCecure, LLC 

• Modern Cryptography for K12: Justin Troutman, PocketBlock

Attend one of the Nepris Cybersecurity Career Presentations

Circadence Mini Games: Port Flow, Perplex, Cypher, Cyber Vault, 

and Cylitare

November 12-17, 2018

Allow students to explore the Circadence MiniGames!

Circadence hosted more than 20 interns over the summer to develop fun and engaging 

applications that focused on cybersecurity awareness training using game-based activities. 

Explore these student-driven and developed applications and experience how cyber training can 

engage and enlighten both cyber experts and enthusiasts!

Are you a cybersecurity whiz? If so, Perplex is for you. This multiplayer, time-based trivia game 

were players race against the clock and each other to answer cybersecurity trivia questions and 

collect points.

Unlock cybersecurity mysteries with Cypher, an encryption game that uses a movable Alberti 

Cipher disk to “decode” cybersecurity concepts and theories into readable encrypted messages. 

Players learn the basics of the industry while challenging their current knowledge of fundamental 

topics.

Port Flow is designed to reinforce common ports and protocols used in the Internet. Players draw 

connections between the correct port and protocol while using each square in the puzzle.

CyberVault is designed to reinforce the process of converting numbers between decimal, binary, 

and hexadecimal. This game includes an imbedded tutorial on hints for base conversion.

Cylitaire is loosely based on the classic card game of Solitaire. Each “card” represents a phase in 

a cyber intrusion kill chain and contains information about an attack, technique, or tool used in the 

respective phase.

Explore the Circadence Mini-Games
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InfoSec Institute: Boost Your Cybersecurity Career with These Free 

Resources

November 12-17, 2018

Explore these great resources to help you kickstart — or sharpen — your 

cybersecurity career.

Developed for grades K-12, this online module explains the cybersecurity 

skills shortage and encourages students to pursue a career in this growing 

field. It tackles industry stigmas and stereotypes head-on by outlining what 

cybersecurity professionals do and the wide-variety of roles they can fill. 

The module also includes tips to help students prepare for a career in the 

field, including taking online courses, finding a mentor and participating in 

competitions like the Global Cyber Olympics.

Discover your favorite job cybersecurity profile. Each includes: a job description, responsibilities, 

duties, related certifications, hard skills, soft skills, degree/education requirements, salary 

information, job outlook information, current job listings, related articles, and a plethora of other 

relevant information.

Explore InfoSec Institute

Air Force Association’s CyberPatriot: The National Youth Cyber 

Education Program

November 12-17, 2018

Have your students learn more about cybersecurity careers and the skills used as a cybersecurity 

professional by having them engage with Security Showdown 2, JeffOS, or Packet Protector.

Learn more about the CyberPatriot National Youth Cyber Education Program
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PocketBlock: Pockenacci

November 12-17, 2018

Currently, there's a massive gap between classical cryptography and modern 

cryptography, in regard to its "teachability" to K-12; this is because of the 

mathematical understanding that's required once you reach modern 

algorithms, such as those used in practice today. The open-source project 

(PocketBlock) scales down modern cryptography in a way that's as easy to 

understand and navigate, hands-on, as classical cryptography, but teaches the 

advanced concepts present in modern cryptography. View the full PocketBlock

curriculum, or a sample lesson with Pockenacci.

Explore PocketBlock

Hats and Ladders: Career Exploration and Skills Building Program 

for Youth Ages 14 to 25

November 12-17, 2018

Use Hats & Ladders, a mobile platform, to motivate youth to explore, 

experiment with, and prepare for a wide range of career pathways—

including cybersecurity. Instead of trying to “match” individuals to a 

single career or cluster, we want to empower youth as career 

thinkers, capable of making their own connections between who they 

are, who they want to be, and how to get there.

Explore Hats & Ladders

Comic-BEE: Interactive Cybersecurity Careers Conversation Starter

November 12-17, 2018

Comic-BEE is a web-based technology designed to assist 

cybersecurity educators and subject matter experts, who are 
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neither programmers nor artists, to develop web-based branching, graphic stories that are closely 

aligned with instructional goals.

Use a comic as a ‘conversation starter’ for your NCCAW activity – learners can read comics 

individually or in pairs, explore different cybersecurity scenarios and see what happens with 

different choices, and explore the skills of a cybersecurity practitioner. 

Explore at Comic-BEE.

Start Engineering: Cybersecurity Career Guide

November 12-17, 2018

To engage students who fit within the broad spectrum of cybersecurity 

workforce needs will require more substantive, nuanced ways of 

talking about the field. Discussion will need to move beyond the 

common approach of focusing on hardware, networks, and operating 

systems--it will take integration of cybersecurity content across 

multiple disciplines. Use the Cybersecurity Career Guide to help students 

discover and learn:

• What cybersecurity is and why it is an exciting field; 

• What cybersecurity career options are available; and 

• What are possible pathways to enter the cybersecurity workforce. 

Read more about increasing the cybersecurity workforce through the 

Start Engineering Cybersecurity Careers Blog.

Explore at start-engineering.com
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New Resources Were Added to the NCCAW Toolkit 
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NCCAW Welcomes International Participation
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Governor Paul R. 

LePage signed the 

proclamation to the 

left designating 

November 12- 17, 

2018 as National 

Cybersecurity Career 

Awareness Week in 

the State of Maine.