Software vulnerabilities in commercial products are an issue of national importance. The most prevalent breaches are input validation vulnerabilities, and these are easily avoidable. This dissertation contributes to cybersecurity education with a set of hands-on interventions tailored for three CS courses, a set of reflection prompts to encourage students to grow across levels of learning, a method for analyzing the responses, and results of a cross-sectional and longitudinal study analyzing the changes in knowledge and attitudes of students after three semesters of offering the interventions. Over a three semester period, students in three core CS courses (Programming Fundamentals 1, Computer Organization, and Software Engineering) completed defensive programming assignments developed for this study. The assignments covered common input validation vulnerabilities, how they are exploited and how the vulnerabilities can be mitigated. The assignments included reflection prompts developed using Moon's transformative learning model. Responses were analyzed with natural language processing (NLP) to classify the levels. After the assignments in Computer Organization and Software Engineering, 80-90% of students wrote reflection responses that demonstrated the highest levels of learning: integrating ideas and transformative learning. To assess practice of defensive programming skills, students were asked to static test their project code in two project based courses. However, the static testing did not consistently produce meaningful results as most projects reported no vulnerabilities. This research highlights the difficulties in measuring students' application of defensive programming in project-based assignments. NLP analysis of free response survey questions indicate an increased interest in cybersecurity and acknowledgement of its importance after having a defensive programming assignment in their first CS course. A cross-sectional and longitudinal evaluation of survey questions using multiple linear regression analysis showed that students in courses later in the curriculum scored higher on questions about defensive programming, but more importantly, students' scores increased significantly after the assignments in Computer Organization and Software Engineering. Overall this research shows that knowledge of, interest in, and understanding of relevance of cybersecurity increased after students had hands-on assignments in multiple courses. This provides compelling evidence that assignments inserted into multiple core courses helps CS students develop an appreciation for defensive programming. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]