Towards a Tailored Cybersecurity Education Framework for Malaysia: A Systematic Literature Review

Developing countries including Malaysia faces urgent challenges in cybersecurity education: preparing graduates who meet industry demands while addressing national cultural and regulatory contexts. Despite global advancements, no localized education framework currently aligns Malaysian higher education curricula with industry-required competencies. This systematic literature review (SLR) analyzed 65 academic and gray literature sources selected from an initial pool of 706 studies. The review employed thematic synthesis to examine the Malaysian cybersecurity programs incorporate technical competencies, policy literacy, and contextual relevance. Findings reveal four recurring gaps: limited integration of industry-aligned technical skills, insufficient adoption of hands-on pedagogies such as labs and gamification, underrecognition of professional certifications, and minimal incorporation of local policy and cultural considerations. These insights emphasize the necessity of a context-aware cyber-security education framework tailored for Malaysia. The study provides a conceptual foundation for designing an industry-driven curriculum model, supporting future research on cybersecurity competency development in higher education.

@article{Yar2025,
  title     = {Towards a Tailored Cybersecurity Education Framework for Malaysia: A Systematic Literature Review},
  journal   = {International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications},
  volume    = {16},
  number    = {11},
  year      = {2025},
  publisher = {The Science and Information Organization},
  author    = {Muhammad Asfand Yar and Hock Guan Goh and Kiran Adnan and Ming Lee Gan and Vasaki Ponnusamy},
  doi       = {10.14569/IJACSA.2025.0161191},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2025.0161191}
}