Cyber secured: A serious game for cybersecurity novices

Abstract

We developed an educational serious game to teach basic cybersecurity concepts to novices. An evaluation of the game on introductory Computer Science and Business students suggests that playing the game resulted in both short-term learning gains in cybersecurity as well as longer-term retention of the concepts.We also saw evidence that students who played the game had increased interest in cybersecurity, and students self-reported interest in playing the game to learn more about and assess their knowledge of cybersecurity.