An internet role-game for the laboratory of a network security course

Over the last few years, many universities and educational institutions have introduced computer security related courses to their degree programs. The majority of these courses feature intensive laboratory activity based on live experiments of attack and defense techniques by means of team games organized as "cyber-wars". In this paper we argue that, although it is a useful tool for teaching and learning these techniques, the exercise paradigm does not cover all the aspects of security relating to a real-world scenario, with it not allowing students to experience the realistic needs of maintaining network services. In this paper we present the "role-game of the Internet" which was designed as part of the lab activity of our Network Security Course. In our game, instead of fighting against each other, student-teams had to cooperate in order to accomplish a list of businesslike tasks over a simulation of the Internet while preserving the security and availability of featured network services. Copyright 2008 ACM.