Using Kali Linux Security Tools to Create Laboratory Projects for Cybersecurity Education

Abstract

Cybersecurity education is an integral part of many undergraduate computer science curriculums. The draft ACM Computer Science Curricula 2013 recommends cybersecurity as a required body of knowledge for a typical computer science program. In the past few years, researchers and educators have developed various approaches and tools to implement laboratory projects for cybersecurity courses. Without doubt, cybersecurity education would be more effective, if we include hands-on activities to the relevant courses. This inclusion of hands-on activities can be achieved in various forms. Some institutions have the resources and expertise to set up physical laboratories for this purpose. Others use tools such as Second Life to create virtual classes and laboratories. This research reports our approach to hands-on activities for cybersecurity courses. In this approach, we use Kali Linux 2017.3 release pre-installed and preconfigured tools to create a set of laboratory projects. We also use VMware to setup virtual machine networks and then utilize security tools for hands-on part of our security courses. Finally, we report the details of the laboratory projects as well as their implementation.