A SWOT analysis of virtual laboratories for security education

Abstract

Work is active in many institutes of higher education on utilising virtual computer environments for creating laboratories for practical course-work. Computer Security education is one area where virtual environments are proving to be useful, and where several schools have reported their own schemes for implementing environments for practical exercises. In this study we attempt to take a somewhat broader look at what the use of virtualisation technology can imply terms of a number of factors, i.e. the pedagogy, security, licensing, administration and cost. A simple analysis of the general strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of virtual security laboratories allows us to motivate design choices when implementing yet another of these experimental environments. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2013.