Logo image
Back
Wireless cybersecurity education via a software defined radio laboratory
Conference proceeding

Wireless cybersecurity education via a software defined radio laboratory

Cem Sahin, Danh Nguyen, James Chacko and Kapil R Dandekar
2015 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), v 2014
Oct 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2015.7344153

Abstract

Wireless communication Computers curriculum development data security Hardware Communication system security Computer security Jamming engineering education
Cybersecurity is one of the fastest growing concerns in the world today. Recent global events show the need for more strict measures to protect the public from cyber attacks, which has triggered an increased demand for cybersecurity professionals. Many academic institutions began offering courses covering current cybersecurity concepts to satisfy this need. Although these courses educate students with proper skills, they lack the connection to current advancements in academic research. A more encompassing curriculum is needed in this rapidly growing field. For the most up-to-date education, we developed a course that takes a student-centric hands-on approach supported with Software Defined Radios to study current cybersecurity research projects in wireless networks. Our course consists of short lectures followed by lab sessions, where students implement security algorithms described by standards or by recent peer-reviewed research articles. Our results indicate that students appreciate the mixture of textbook and research topics being covered in the course and they feel more prepared for any future task in the cybersecurity field. While deviating from the textbook applies additional strain to educators, our paper shows that including current research practices in curriculum development efforts is a good investment towards a better educational outcome.

Metrics

7 Record Views
7 citations in Scopus

Details

Logo image