A teaching prototype for educating IT security' engineers in emerging environments

Romney, Gordon W.; Higby, Charles; Stevenson, Brady R.; Blackham, Nathan

doi:10.1109/ithet.2004.1358254

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…For the past ten years, the authors have been implementing operating system virtualization in engineering laboratory exercises at both semester-based universities as well as NU [2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. Virtual Labs (VL), as these exercises have been called, have been especially important in the one-month-course modality.…”

Section: National University Teaching Uniquenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the case of NU, efficiencies were gained in four areas: 1) infrastructure operation, 2) lab administration, 3) student access to current technology, and 4) instructor teaching. Regarding infrastructure operation server utilization is normally under 10% so it makes sense to share the resource with concurrent VM users [7]. Now, with ISLE over 700 VMs are serviced by four physical DELL servers.…”

Section: Virtualizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The agility, flexibility and efficiency of hypervisors in engineering education

Romney¹,

Sinha²,

Dey³

et al. 2013

2013 12th International Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training (ITHET)

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Virtualization, as a process, differs from the Hypervisor that is the software that makes the process possible. By the proper utilization of hypervisors agility, flexibility and efficiency may be gained in engineering hands-on education. Layered accreditation and certification impose additional challenges on engineering and cyber security programs. Consequently, there is an extra degree of oversight, assessment and thoroughness required in curricula in order to meet all standards. At National University only through the use of virtualization is it possible to add hands-on experience in a one-month delivery of a full semester of instruction per course. The use of virtualization through private and public cloud delivery as well as on a student's personal computer makes this possible. The employment of multi-factor authentication and a VPN provides the necessary security for students who are dispersed all over the world. The collaborative synergy of Computer Science, Information Technology and Cyber Security disciplines has made the creation of a dynamically morphing virtual lab possible. The teaching efficiencies gained by using virtualization are significant: 1) the lab exercises do not impact the student's base laptop configuration, 2) the immediate exercise is made available for completion, 3) the synergy of having assignments and labs intermixed throughout the teaching cycle reinforce one another, and 4) the versatility and ability of the instructor to introduce new concepts literally dynamically helps maintain current courseware.

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Section: National University Teaching Uniquenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Virtualizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The agility, flexibility and efficiency of hypervisors in engineering education

Romney¹,

Sinha²,

Dey³

et al. 2013

2013 12th International Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training (ITHET)

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“…However, specific information regarding courses with similar prerequisites as the one described herein, i.e., a short course especially tailored towards military officers with limited computer knowledge, has not been published widely. In part, this is probably due to that academia traditionally "teaches the why and the what but gives little attention to the how" [4,10]. Of course, comparable short term security classes given to working professionals exist albeit they have not been reported on in the literature.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The need to build an isolated computer lab where the students are able to use the lab as a playground for trying out various security related tools in a secure fashion have been discussed, and endorsed, widely, and many examples exist, see, e.g., [6,8,10]. For the most part, however, development of suitable computer laboratories has been performed by enthusiastic computer science teachers who have focused on the technical issues rather than the educational aspects.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

An information assurance curriculum for commanding officers using hands-on experiments

Brynielsson

2009

Proceedings of the 40th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

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To authorize and initiate necessary investments and enforce appropriate policies and procedures, decision-makers need to have at least a fair understanding of computer security fundamentals. This paper presents the course design and the laboratory settings that have been developed for, and used within, the high rank officer curriculum at the Swedish National Defence College. The developed course looks at computer security from an attack versus defend viewpoint, meaning that computer attacks are studied to learn about prevention and self-defense. The paper discusses the pedagogical challenges related to education of high rank officers and similar personnel in light of recently-held courses and contrasts the course relative to similar undertakings. A standpoint taken is that computer security is best taught using hands-on laboratory experiments focusing on problem solving assignments. This is not undisputed since, e.g., high rank officers are busy people who are not fond of getting stuck learning about the peripherals.

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“…Industry has referred to IT security-focused practitioners both as Security Engineers [13] and Security System Engineers [14]. In our environment we will refer to our students' preparation to become Security System Engineers.…”

Section: Security System Engineermentioning

confidence: 99%

An isolated, multi-platform network sandbox for teaching IT security system engineers

Romney

Stevenson

2004

Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Information Technology Education

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The objective of this paper is to describe the successful deployment and operation of a student managed, isolated network "Sandbox" laboratory used for teaching Information Technology (IT) Security System Engineers. Laboratories for training Network Engineers have previously been deployed in IT education, frequently using a standard operating system base configuration in order to facilitate re-imaging for new classes. We have elected to employ a mujlti-platform environment that utilizes bothWindows and Linux operating systems. The Sandbox is called such because it is a creative experimental area physically isolated from all other networks including the Internet. Experimentation with every class of vulnerability such as viruses, worms, parasites, malware, and Denial of Service attacks is evaluated, mitigated and controlled. Having a strictly Linux-based environment as others frequently have done avoids the escalating problems introduced by Windows platforms. We have elected to study and experiment with multiple OS environments and confront the challenges that Windows presents. The Sandbox security laboratory has served as a test-bed for executing security labs created by students concurrent with the running of two different upper-class and graduate university-level IT security courses. Students created both the lectures and the labs used in these security courses. The first course was a very comprehensive course in all topics of network, internet and web security. The sescond course dealt with identity management, data privacy and identity theft. Students architected the network topology and built the Sandbox. The Sandbox is designed in a modular fashion to facilitate the creation of multiple network nodes with firewalls, IDSs, and associated servers, routers and switches. A student Security Team was organized to administer the Sandbox. Security Best Practices were developed to ensure consistent management of the Sandbox and its security policies. IT undergraduate and graduate students have learned that the role of a Security Systems Engineer involves not only technology, but also responsible management of policy and Best Practices concepts

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A teaching prototype for educating IT security' engineers in emerging environments

Cited by 9 publications

References 6 publications

The agility, flexibility and efficiency of hypervisors in engineering education

The agility, flexibility and efficiency of hypervisors in engineering education

An information assurance curriculum for commanding officers using hands-on experiments

An isolated, multi-platform network sandbox for teaching IT security system engineers

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