Towards Binary Diversified Challenges for A Hands-On Reverse Engineering Course

Abstract

The balance of a practical hands-on and theoretical approach for reverse engineering coursework offers a strong approach for cybersecurity education. This balance is key to helping students build the skills necessary to contribute to the industry upon graduation. However, the remote learning demands of the current pandemic present a challenge to this approach. Inappropriate collaboration between students poses a threat to the educational benefits of practice-based learning. Specifically, inappropriate collaboration can threaten the development of critical problem skills gained during individual work. Further, relying on instructors to create unique challenges for each student fails to scale. To overcome these challenges, we have implemented a binary diversification system that produces unique reverse engineering challenges per student. In this paper, we present the technical details and lessons learned implementing this approach. We believe that sharing our approach will benefit cybersecurity education instructors looking to overcome the challenges of remote-learning cybersecurity coursework.