2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Along with the ever-increasing adoption of connected systems in the age of the Internet of Things (IoT), there is a pressing need for preparing engineers and other technology professionals to address the growing cybersecurity challenges. Nowadays, cybersecurity education is needed not only for cybersecurity specialists but also for anyone who works with technology, especially in critical infrastructure (such as energy systems or healthcare). However, there is an evident gap in cybersecurity skills due to the dearth of accessible classes on the topic for non-specialists. This is particularly important because major attacks on critical IoT systems originate from vulnerabilities introduced by human error (via social engineering, phishing emails, etc.), committed by engineers and other professionals who are not cybersecurity experts. Hence, effective cybersecurity education aimed at a broad audience of engineering students is crucial. One way to achieve this is to offer accessible cybersecurity courses that are open to students from different backgrounds, departments, and/or majors. The challenge here is to design accessible courses while giving students the hands-on experience needed for effective learning with minimal prerequisites. In this paper, we present methods to navigate through some of the challenges resulting from removing typical prerequisites, and the trade-off between breadth and depth. Specifically, we apply this method in an undergraduate information security course in engineering that covers network security, while many students do not have computer networks background prior to taking the course. We combined two different approaches for hands-on exercises on network firewalls. The first one is a video gaming approach (CyberCIEGE), and the second one is based on setting up multiple virtual machines (SEED labs). Students are surveyed to indicate how they perceived the different hands-on methods. We analyze the results (from surveys and exam questions) to demonstrate the impact of removing typical prerequisites and the effectiveness of the hands-on methods.