Project Development for Ethical Hacking Practice in A Website Security Course

Abstract

In a world that depends so heavily on technology, web application security, by some measure, is the most significant battleground between attackers and those with data and computer resources to defend and it might remain so for the foreseeable future. Nowadays, industry pays much more attention to the security of web applications. In order to follow the industrial trend, the author's institution offers a new course on website security. The main goal of this course is to sharpen the students' understanding on web application security and to enhance their skills in web application defense. This paper introduces the project development in this course in order to let the students receive practice on ethical hacking. The paper also introduces the students' activities on the course project and the discussions on the outcomes of the project. During the semester when the course was offered, the students showed immense passion towards ethical hacking and provided a lot of valuable feedback.