Practical, hands-on experience is an essential component of computer science and engineering education, especially in the cybersecurity domain. In this project, we are investigating techniques for improving student learning in such courses, first by developing a new hands-on hardware security course, then by testing the impact of gamification on student learning. The experiments utilize only inexpensive, open-source or freely-available software and hardware, and upon project completion, the modules themselves will also be made freely available online. Improving student learning in this critical area can have a wide-spread positive societal impact as we encourage students to have a security-first, secure-by-design mindset.
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Work-in-Progress: HyFlex Hands-On Hardware Security Education During COVID-19
Practical, hands-on hardware experience is an essential component of computer engineering education. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, courses with laboratory components such as Computer Logic Design or FPGA Design were subject to interruption from sudden changes in course modality. While simulators can cover some aspects of laboratory work, they cannot fully replace the hands-on experience students receive working with and debugging hardware. For hardware security in particular, experimenting with attacks and countermeasures on real hardware is vital. In this paper, we describe our approach to designing a practical, hands-on hardware security course that is suitable for HyFlex delivery. We have developed a total of nine experiments utilizing two inexpensive, portable, and self--contained development boards which generally obviate the need for bench equipment. We discuss the trade-offs inherent in the course and experiment design, as well as issues relating to deployment and support for the required design software.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1954259
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10407657
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2022 IEEE World Engineering Education Conference (EDUNINE)
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 4
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1109/EDUNINE53672.2022.9782346
