Designing web labs for teaching security concepts

  • Authors:
  • Dino Schweitzer;Jeff Boleng

  • Affiliations:
  • US Air Force Academy, CO;US Air Force Academy, CO

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Security education is critical in today's cyber-threat environment. Many schools have investigated different approaches to teaching fundamental security concepts through lectures, hands-on labs, security education tools, competitions, and integrated curricula. At the Air Force Academy, we have used interactive tools in and out of the classroom to teach security concepts for several years. Several of our tools present concepts in a simulated environment with a higher level of abstraction than running a real tool on an actual machine. We have also begun experimenting with embedding the tools in a set of web pages that can be used to direct the student through the concepts, suggest experiments to try, and provide additional explanation of results. These "web labs" are well-suited to remote access and online learning environments. This paper will describe the general design philosophy of such labs, give specific examples, and discuss our experience and future plans.