Developing Serious Virtual Video Games For Cultivating Cybersecurity Expertise
There is great need to cultivate talent and skills necessary for high quality cybersecurity professionals. The way that we educate cyber security professionals MUST be one centered on creativity, problem solving, and responding to emergent conditions and contextual realities rather that read-test education models. Additionally, it is necessary for us to develop virtual labs for this training that use emulation/simulation to accomplish Problem Based Learning (PBL) approaches for cybersecurity. This project aims at further developing, evaluating and creating new design documents for highly interactive serious video games for learning cybersecurity in a virtual environment in which learners/players learn both defensive and offensive cybersecurity principles and techniques. An existing game developed in the CCAA (that doubled its size in four years) “CyberBus Burglar” mapped real life networks to a virtual playspace represented by a cityscape with streets, buildings, and vehicles that travel the city. Bus drivers find vulnerabilities in buildings and burglarize them representing authentic opportunistic cyberattacks. This game presents a framework for utilizing crowd intelligence in security hardening and attack attribution. It shows that proper mapping from network security
domain to video games domain allows players/learners to imitate attackers’ decision process. In this project we will further develop this game and others for this virtual, serious video game and problem-based approach for learning cybersecurity.
domain to video games domain allows players/learners to imitate attackers’ decision process. In this project we will further develop this game and others for this virtual, serious video game and problem-based approach for learning cybersecurity.