Providing Iterative Cybersecurity Hands-On Learning Experience: Reflections on Teaching Cyber Defense to Second Year IT Students

Although hands-on cybersecurity labs are being increasingly adopted in higher education institutes, we observe that the learning experiences gained by entry-level students are mixed. This chapter describes the author’s reflections on and analysis of why the students’ learning experiences are mixed. This chapter also describes the author’s efforts to improve the students’ learning experiences through an iterative hands-on lab design approach. Compared to widely adopted hands-on security labs, the proposed approach retrofits the connections between the labs in a sequence in such a way that the students can gain the ability to master a few advanced hands-on cyber defense skills. The description of the proposed approach includes the authors’ reflections on the relation between the unique cybersecurity education challenges and the design principles of iterative hands-on labs, the likely pitfalls in implementing iterative labs, and the main challenges in assessing the extent to which the students’ learning experiences are improved. The abovementioned reflections are based on the author’s teaching of CYBER 262 (Cyber-Defense Studio) at Penn State University.