Authors:
Luca Demetrio
;
Giovanni Lagorio
;
Marina Ribaudo
;
Enrico Russo
and
Andrea Valenza
Affiliation:
DIBRIS, University of Genoa and Italy
Keyword(s):
Ethical Hacking, Capture the Flag Competitions, Non-formal Learning.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Active Learning
;
Blended Learning
;
Community Building
;
Computer-Supported Education
;
e-Learning
;
Game-Based and Simulation-Based Learning
;
Learning/Teaching Methodologies and Assessment
;
Pattern Recognition
;
Social Context and Learning Environments
;
Theory and Methods
Abstract:
Cybersecurity attacks are on the rise, and the current response is not effective enough. The need for a competent workforce, able to face attackers, is increasing. At the moment, the gap between academia and real-world skills is huge and academia cannot provide students with skills that match those of an attacker. To pass on these skills, teachers have to train students in scenarios as close as possible to real-world ones. Capture the Flag (CTF) competitions are a great tool to achieve this goal, since they encourage students to think as an attacker does, thus creating more awareness on the modalities and consequences of an attack. We describe our experience in running an educational activity on ethical hacking, which we proposed to computer science and computer engineering students. We organized seminars, outside formal classes, and provided online support on the hands-on part of the training. We delivered different types of exercises and held a final CTF competition. These activiti
es resulted in growing a community of students and researchers interested in cybersecurity, and some of them have formed ZenHack, an official CTF team.
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