SaTC: EDU: Building an Internet Emulator for Cybersecurity Education

Learning by doing is very important for education. However, it is quite challenging in cybersecurity to do hands-on activities that require Internet infrastructure. There is a lack of safe and effective platforms for these activities, as many cybersecurity activities cannot be carried out directly on the Internet, or they would cause real damage.

Inspired by many other fields, the project team is developing an Internet emulator and then using the emulator as the lab environment for hands-on activities. With this emulator, one can create a miniature Internet inside a personal computer with all the essential elements of the Internet. The project team aims to develop a suite of hands-on labs which will enable students to experiment with techniques to combat attacks inside the emulator without causing any harm to the real world.

Moreover, many notable past attacks (e.g., the Morris Worm) can be recreated inside the emulator, so students can see study the historical events and envision how to defend against these attacks. The Internet emulator and the associated lab activities can help develop a much-needed workforce in cybersecurity, especially in improving hands-on skills.

This project has two primary objectives: i) developing an Internet emulator that can serve as the basis for conducting hands-on exercises and ii) developing hands-on lab activities based on the emulator. This project fills a void in cybersecurity education since while there are existing network emulators, a low-cost Internet emulator designed explicitly for cybersecurity education does not exist.

Moreover, there are few hands-on activities based on such emulators. With the solutions expected from this project, students can conduct lab activities, including attacks and defenses, on the Internet level, without worrying about causing real damage. Instructors will have a pool of lab activities they can choose from based on their education needs.

They can also use the emulator to customize the lab environment. While this project focuses on cybersecurity education, the emulator can also be used as the base for designing lab activities in other fields, such as networking and other aspects of information technology applications. The emulator has the potential to become a successful, high-impact, and self-sustained open-source project.

This project is supported by the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program, which funds proposals that address cybersecurity and privacy, and in this case specifically cybersecurity education. The SaTC program aligns with the Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Strategic Plan and the National Privacy Research Strategy to protect and preserve the growing social and economic benefits of cyber systems while ensuring security and privacy.

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.