Cybersecurity Training: Improving Platforms Through Usability Studies

The combination of technological advancements and gaps in cyber awareness is behind the increasing problem of cyber-attacks. Cyber-attacks are no longer just a concern for businesses and governments; they are also a concern for the public, especially the young, who are true digital natives. In this age of rapid technological advancement and access to various forms of social media and games, it is critical for the youth and private companies to acquire IT skills to protect their digital privacy. As new IT subjects are introduced in Middle School and Secondary Education, teachers will need access to hands-on environments with relevant exercises within the concepts of cybersecurity education (such as web exploitation, forensics, cryptography, binary, etc.) based on students’ level of understanding. In this paper, we study how to design a cyber training platform to assist teachers in accessing relevant exercises for cybersecurity education. As a case study, we are testing the Haaukins administrative cybersecurity training platform, along with the connected learning material platform that will guide how to use the cybersecurity training platform along with supporting learning material. The usability of these two platforms has been investigated in a cybersecurity educational environment with high school teachers. The results show that the use cases assist teachers in providing training environments for students by utilizing ready-to-use exercises relevant to cybersecurity subjects and by providing access to learning material covering a wide range of cybersecurity topics aimed at students at a beginner and intermediate level.