Offensive Cyber Security Education

As cyber systems became more prevalent in the modern society than ever, numerous security concerns emerged alongside with it. Helping to address the current skills gap by increasing interest in cybersecurity among young people could be the effective solution in long term. Cyber self-sufficiency is seen as a challenge that requires improved higher education, more research and increased support. By all accounts, the world faces a current and growing workforce shortage of qualified cybersecurity professionals and practitioners.

The goal of this research project is to develop education material and hands-on cybersecurity exercises, that can be used at all levels in the education system. This includes universities, vocational training colleges, continued education and second level education, but the material will also be made available for self-study among interested (groups of) young people.

In this direction, project aims to develop a general model for cybersecurity evaluation, that helps identify a system’s attack surface and potential attack vectors, thus facilitating threat and vulnerability analysis. Additionally, we aim to develop teaching materials that introduce tools and techniques to attack cyber systems. This material should include a broad selection of potential threats to allow students to develop a holistic approach to threat modelling and cybersecurity.

To sum up, the development of materials and tools serves both to expand and improve the developed model and to evaluate the model’s ability to support security analysis of cyber systems. By establishing more hands-on experience with cybersecurity practices, users eventually will become more aware and self-sufficient with respect to contemporary cybersecurity related problems.