Explorative learning of wireless network security with Tele-Lab IT-Security

Abstract

Recently, IT-Security education and awareness creation have become important issues - especially for companies. Enterprises noticed that employees are often unknowingly responsible for security incidents. Due to the significant costs that may arise from such incidents, many companies nowadays spend a lot of money on awareness campaigns. Because today pupils are already able to use current computer technologies and the internet at a young age, the idea arose to start security education and awareness raising early in schools. This paper investigates the feasibility of a special security education program at the "Berufsbildenden Schule für Gewerbe und Technik" (a school providing vocational education) in Trier, Germany. Considering that security education needs to train students to deal with security problems in real environments, the Hasso-Plattner-Institut in Potsdam developed a special interactive web-based security training system. Besides theoretical knowledge, the so-called Tele-Lab system provides students with hands-on experiences by means of a virtual laboratory. This virtual lab is realized on the basis of virtual machines. Every user receives a dedicated virtualized computer to perform practical security exercises with real-life tools in a secure way. Using Tele-Lab, students of the "Berufsbildenden Schule für Gewerbe und Technik" were able to explore wireless network security issues autonomously. This paper subsequently describes the technical foundations of Tele-Lab, the students' hybrid learning process and the evaluation of the Tele-Lab training system. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.