SaTC: EDU: Collaborative: Advancing Cybersecurity Learning Through Inquiry-based Laboratories on a Container-based Virtualization Platform

在安全漏洞、侵犯隐私和网络钓鱼诈骗司空见惯的时代，教育和培训一支有网络安全能力的员工队伍至关重要。然而，由于许多网络安全概念和技术的复杂性和抽象性，学生很难有效地理解它们。为了应对这一挑战，该项目寻求创建创新的学习材料和工具，以帮助改变网络安全教育的现状。项目设计以探究式学习模式为基础，并借助最新的虚拟化技术进步。具体地说，该项目由一组基于调查的动手实验室组成，这些实验室托管在经济实惠、可扩展、可扩展且维护成本低的基于容器的虚拟化平台上。该项目通过帮助社区和四年制大学开发新的实验材料和课程，满足了网络安全课程的迫切和基本需求。在本项目中，将设计和开发三种类型的动手实验：扩展实验、核心实验和高级实验。外展实验室是专门为社区大学生设计的，旨在激发他们对网络安全的好奇心和兴趣，从而推动他们在四年制大学继续学习。核心实验室的主要目的是帮助学习复杂的网络安全概念和技术。这些高级实验室不仅旨在介绍新兴的安全技术，而且还旨在激励有兴趣在这些领域进行研究的学生。我们所有的实验材料和软件工具都将是开源的，并可供学习者、教育工作者和研究人员使用。最后，将向教师和研究生提供基于容器的云计算平台的培训。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

It is critical to educate and train a cybersecurity-capable workforce in an era where security breaches, privacy violations, and phishing scams have become commonplace. However, due to the complicated and abstract nature of many cybersecurity concepts and techniques, it is challenging for students to comprehend them in an effective manner. To address this challenge, this project seeks to create innovative learning materials and tools that can help transform the status quo of cybersecurity education. The project design is based on the inquiry-based learning model and enabled by recent advances in virtualization technology. Specifically, this project consists of a set of inquiry-based, hands-on laboratories that are hosted on an affordable, scalable, extensible, and low-maintenance container-based virtualization platform. This project meets the pressing and essential needs in cybersecurity curricula by aiding the development of new lab materials and courses for community and four-year colleges. In this project, three types of hands-on labs will be designed and developed: Outreach, Core, and Advanced. Outreach labs are designed specifically for community college students to inspire their curiosity and interest in cybersecurity, and thus, to drive them to continue their study in a 4-year college. The key purpose of the core labs is to assist the learning of complicated cybersecurity concepts and technologies. The advanced labs aim at not only introducing emerging security technologies, but also inspiring students who are interested in doing research in these areas. All of our lab materials and software tools will be open-source and available to learners, educators, and researchers. Lastly, training on the container-based cloud computing platform will be offered to instructors and graduate students.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.