Experiences Using Capture The Flag Competitions to Introduce Gamification in Undergraduate Computer Security Labs

Abstract

Instructors teaching undergraduate Computer Security courses usually find important challenges regarding the proposal of up-to-date, realistic, meaningful, active and motivating practical exercises and labs. This is especially critical when resources (administrative, financial and/or technical) are limited. This paper summarizes our experiences introducing gamification in Computer Security labs through on-line Capture The Flag competitions, trying to improve the engagement of our students and to improve their reverse engineering, vulnerability exploitation, cryptography and secure programming skills. Specifically, the learning outcomes, design, setup and implementation of gamified labs are presented. Results from these first experiences show that students perceive the new labs design as more interactive, collaborative, useful and motivating compared to the previous approach based on individual virtualized exercises. All this minimizing administrative, financial and technical costs through the use of the open and free Facebook Capture The Flag platform.