Individualizing Cybersecurity Lab Exercises with Labtainers

Abstract

Hurdles to creating and assessing exploratory cybersecurity laboratory exercises include their development, setup, and configuration; resource requirements; student sharing of results; and arduous grading. The Labtainers framework supports multi-component networks and simplifies the creation of labs that are consistent and fair, can be parameterized to discourage students from submitting results either created by others or mined from the Internet, and can include practical, instructor-friendly automated assessment. Implemented using Linux Docker containers and easily accommodated on students’ modest computers, each stand-alone cybersecurity lab exercise has one or more associated containers that ensure a consistent execution environment within the lab. Here we discuss three approaches to lab parameterization that encourage individual work and are compatible with automated assessment: watermarks, per-student artifacts, and per-student solutions.