The Cybersecurity Competition Experience: Perceptions from Cybersecurity Workers

How do workers within the field of cybersecurity perceive cybersecurity competitions? This study aims to address this question and investigate if competitions left a positive mark on the information security workers who participated in them. In this paper, we report on an online survey of current employees of the cybersecurity industry who had once participated in Cybersecurity Awareness Week, one of the most established cybersecurity competitions in the world. We examine their perceptions of the competition in general, the skills they learnt from the competition, and whether they felt the competition was beneficial to them. Data from 89 cybersecurity workers showed that competitions taught them useful skills related to their job, especially skills related to reverse engineering and analytic skills. Their competition experience was also a major influence in their career-decision making.