Experiential Cyber Education

There is a gap between available cyber professionals with necessary skills and experience to meet industry requirements. Institutions of higher education (IHE)—as well as other programs—have begun increasing course and degree offerings to help educate, train, and even retrain working professionals to close this gap. Of growing importance are tools and techniques to supplement theoretical development with accelerated experiential cyber training. Fortunately, there has been an increase in providers offering these services, although they vary substantially in features, costs, and opportunities. The purpose of this research is to identify a current spectrum of vendors and opportunities providing hands-on cyber training. The authors of this paper include cyber faculty at a university offering undergraduate and master's cybersecurity degrees. Both degrees are offered to resident as well as online students.