Cybersecurity has been identified as one of the most serious economic and national security challenges the nation faces. However, current cybersecurity education has not kept pace with the rapidly changing world of modern computing technologies. This project will produce curricular materials that will allow instructors to teach cybersecurity as it relates to cloud computing environments. A set of reusable virtual platforms will be developed, that will be used by a wide audience to effectively learn network and system security in cloud computing. The curricular materials that will be developed as a result of this project will result in more efficient student learning and engagement, which over time will lead to a better trained and prepared security workforce. Feedback from students using the materials will allow for the development of more effective teaching methods.
The undergraduate and graduate cybersecurity curriculum will be updated by developing a series of laboratory exercises under the context of cloud environments. In each laboratory exercise students will be provided with the background knowledge needed to complete the exercise, and then using a reusable framework, students will develop their own code and conduct experiments independently. Students will be taught how to analyze experimental results and summarize the attack and defense strategies learned from the experiments. These course materials will allow students to become familiar with the major security and privacy issues in cloud computing, become aware of the latest progress in cloud security research, deepen their understanding of the basic concepts of network and system security, and learn the important programming and system skills via hands-on experience.
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.
