Security exercises for the online classroom with DETER

Creating high-quality homework with an emphasis on creativity and open-ended learning is challenging. This is especially true for online classes, which must be both accessible via the Internet and comparable in quality and value to projects that could be used in a traditional classroom. UCLA recently began offering an online master’s degree program in computer science, which includes a course in computer security. This motivated the design of online coursework intended to take the place of the traditional in-class homework and group projects. The resulting security labs use standard security tools and the DETER testbed, which can be organized into networks of physical machines running real software. In these environments, students perform open-ended exercises involving file permissions, firewalls, software vulnerabilities, eavesdropping and injection, man-in-the-middle attacks, computer forensics, and network intrusion detection systems. We also created an extensive online lab manual to accompany the exercises. With some important technical caveats, DETER proved to be an excellent platform for online education, and the labs themselves have been a great success since they were introduced in 2008.