Entailing Security Mindset in Foundational CS Courses: An Interactive Approach

The integration of computer security courses into computing curricula has become standard practice. However, these courses are often deferred to later stages of the curriculum due to the perceived need for advanced computer science knowl-edge. This deferral perpetuates the lack of a security mindset, leading to overlooked security vulnerabilities in students' code. This study advocates for the early introduction of security-related courses, ideally in introductory computing courses, by proposing an interactive teaching approach to instill a security mindset in students. We present a method employing a security-oriented programming assignment graded primarily on understanding conventional computing concepts. This approach progressively introduces critical security principles and practices through the interactive assignment, inherently security-sensitive, involving the implementation of application programming interfaces for rou-tine software operations. The paper outlines our approach's steps, discusses essential security concepts and their integration, and outlines an evaluation methodology to measure the effectiveness of our approach.