SaTC: EDU: Augmenting Cybersecurity Education in Mobile Health (mHealth) Through Curriculum and Experimental Platform Development

Yeshiva University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Mobile health (mHealth) is a rapidly growing field that utilizes mobile devices like smartphones and wearables to provide healthcare services and information. While mHealth has the potential to improve healthcare significantly, it also presents substantial cybersecurity risks. For example, unauthorized access to sensitive patient information is a major concern, and it can happen through compromised wearables or networks, leading to data breaches. As a result, ensuring security in mHealth applications is crucial to guarantee the safety and effectiveness of mHealth technologies. However, there is a severe shortage of cybersecurity professionals in the mHealth sector. Hence, there is a strong need to provide cybersecurity education for mHealth. Unfortunately, there is a lack of curriculum materials on cybersecurity in the context of mHealth, and integrating mHealth and cybersecurity courses without hands-on practice is ineffective. Furthermore, developing mHealth cybersecurity curriculum materials is challenging due to its multi-disciplinary nature. This project will address these shortages and challenges by developing an innovative education platform and curriculum to train and educate future cybersecurity experts in mHealth. This project will advance cybersecurity education in the emerging field of mHealth, promoting cybersecurity workforce development. The project will develop seven independent course modules, an experimental mHealth cybersecurity platform, a data repository, and an mHealth cybersecurity education workshop. The performance benchmarks will be developed for practical implementations of the cybersecurity platform, which will be incorporated into the curriculum materials. In addition, this project aims to broaden participation of students from underrepresented groups in computing by expanding partnerships with medical schools and organizing workshops. The project team will disseminate the project results and share the project outcomes with researchers, educators, and students to learn about mHealth cybersecurity and improve cybersecurity educational materials through collaborations. This award is co-funded by the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE: EDU) Program. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. This project is further supported by the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program, which funds proposals that address cybersecurity and privacy, and in this case, cybersecurity education. The SaTC program aligns with the Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Strategic Plan and the National Privacy Research Strategy to protect and preserve the growing social and economic benefits of cyber systems while ensuring security and privacy. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.