Observations, Evaluations, and Recommendations for DETERLab from an Educational Perspective

DETERLab is a cluster environment that provides a set of virtual machines that can be used by researchers and teachers to run cybersecurity experiments and competitions, and where it is possible to deploy different network configurations to research attack and defense mechanisms in the cyber world....

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Main Authors: Ahmed Ibrahim, Vitaly Ford
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Kennesaw State University 2021-07-01
Series:Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research & Practice
Online Access:https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/jcerp/vol2021/iss1/4/
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author Ahmed Ibrahim
Vitaly Ford
author_facet Ahmed Ibrahim
Vitaly Ford
author_sort Ahmed Ibrahim
collection DOAJ
description DETERLab is a cluster environment that provides a set of virtual machines that can be used by researchers and teachers to run cybersecurity experiments and competitions, and where it is possible to deploy different network configurations to research attack and defense mechanisms in the cyber world. While we were working to develop a pathway for producing more usable and effective cybersecurity educational resources by investigating and examining several projects, we examined DETERLab as a prospective platform to use in the classroom. Throughout our experimentation, we faced challenges that we decided to document in order to help other educators use the environment effectively. In this article, we reflect on the application process, available resources, getting started, and running experiments. We also include an analysis of experiments that have a step-by-step guide, sample solution, grading criteria, network diagram, and teacher manual. In addition, we reflect on the environment for usage in a classroom setting and list all available materials as of the time of writing this article. We believe that DETERLab has the potential to be widely adopted in cybersecurity courses to develop the necessary skills if the key user experience and technical challenges mentioned in this article are addressed. As part of our future work, the findings in this article will be compared to other projects in a much larger research study aiming to develop a pathway for producing more usable and effective cybersecurity educational resources.
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spelling doaj-art-7d709be763e84bfa8c0b297fb9cefe002025-08-20T02:37:30ZengKennesaw State UniversityJournal of Cybersecurity Education, Research & Practice2472-27072021-07-0120211Observations, Evaluations, and Recommendations for DETERLab from an Educational PerspectiveAhmed Ibrahim0Vitaly Ford1University of PittsburghArcadia UniversityDETERLab is a cluster environment that provides a set of virtual machines that can be used by researchers and teachers to run cybersecurity experiments and competitions, and where it is possible to deploy different network configurations to research attack and defense mechanisms in the cyber world. While we were working to develop a pathway for producing more usable and effective cybersecurity educational resources by investigating and examining several projects, we examined DETERLab as a prospective platform to use in the classroom. Throughout our experimentation, we faced challenges that we decided to document in order to help other educators use the environment effectively. In this article, we reflect on the application process, available resources, getting started, and running experiments. We also include an analysis of experiments that have a step-by-step guide, sample solution, grading criteria, network diagram, and teacher manual. In addition, we reflect on the environment for usage in a classroom setting and list all available materials as of the time of writing this article. We believe that DETERLab has the potential to be widely adopted in cybersecurity courses to develop the necessary skills if the key user experience and technical challenges mentioned in this article are addressed. As part of our future work, the findings in this article will be compared to other projects in a much larger research study aiming to develop a pathway for producing more usable and effective cybersecurity educational resources.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/jcerp/vol2021/iss1/4/
spellingShingle Ahmed Ibrahim
Vitaly Ford
Observations, Evaluations, and Recommendations for DETERLab from an Educational Perspective
Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research & Practice
title Observations, Evaluations, and Recommendations for DETERLab from an Educational Perspective
title_full Observations, Evaluations, and Recommendations for DETERLab from an Educational Perspective
title_fullStr Observations, Evaluations, and Recommendations for DETERLab from an Educational Perspective
title_full_unstemmed Observations, Evaluations, and Recommendations for DETERLab from an Educational Perspective
title_short Observations, Evaluations, and Recommendations for DETERLab from an Educational Perspective
title_sort observations evaluations and recommendations for deterlab from an educational perspective
url https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/jcerp/vol2021/iss1/4/
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