Implementing Game-Based Learning to Enhance Training for Cybersecurity Technicians and Recruit a Diverse Cybersecurity Workforce

This project aims to serve the national interest by producing more qualified technicians to meet workforce demands in cybersecurity. Keeping computers and information systems secure is a critical need and a major challenge in business, industry, and government. The growth of cyber-threats has created a need for many more workers who have the knowledge and skills to protect both existing and emerging technologies. The use of challenges, competitions, games, puzzles, and similar highly interactive and team-oriented activities has proved to be an effective means of exciting students about cybersecurity and improving their understanding of cybersecurity concepts. These tools can supplement traditional pedagogical approaches, and they can sometimes engage students that the traditional approaches do not. In this project, educators from Sinclair Community College and Moraine Valley Community College will refine, test, and disseminate a hands-on, minds-on learning game called "Sticker Heist," in which teams of students solve cybersecurity puzzles to complete the shared quest of opening a locked box to retrieve "stickers." This quest is supported by an immersive story that locates the players in an alternate time and identity. This cybersecurity simulation game encourages teamwork, communication, and leadership while it teaches principles and skills in the cybersecurity curriculum. Role-playing and simulation games, especially escape games like "Sticker Heist," are broadly appealing to people of various ages, educational backgrounds, races, and genders and can be used to expose people of all ages to new career fields, especially cybersecurity and other areas of STEM. The learning activities in this project will increase students' engagement, promote learning outcomes, support recruitment into the cybersecurity profession by encouraging participants to picture themselves in a cybersecurity career, and address the critical need to attract more students from underrepresented populations into the cybersecurity workforce.

"Sticker Heist" is a hands-on learning game that consists of a self-contained, portable security system protecting a locked box of laptop stickers. The interior box is a simple, locked container containing a number of laptop stickers related to Defcon, hacking events, etc., which are often collectibles to enthusiasts. The surrounding box contains the systems that secure the first -- currently a Raspberry Pi 4, Arduino Uno, network, and other components (RFID, keypad, buzzer, lights). However, the box is not 100% secure; several common security flaws and vulnerabilities have been built in. This allows teams of high school and college students to work together to gather information (reconnaissance) on the system and then use free, open-source tools to expose and exploit the security flaws to access the system, open the box, and collect the prize. In this challenge, students work together as a team and think critically and creatively while learning the basics of cybersecurity. In the project, the investigators will pursue four related goals. First, is to refine the "Sticker Heist" learning tool, ensuring its alignment with the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Cybersecurity Workforce Framework as well as industry-recognized cybersecurity credentials. Second, is to deliver professional development training on the tool to high school and college faculty so that they can effectively implement the tool in their classrooms. Third, is to promote use of the tool as a means to attract underrepresented students into cybersecurity through demonstrations, recruitment events, and clubs. Fourth, and finally, is to assess the effectiveness of the tool for improving engagement and attracting a broader and more diverse population of students to cybersecurity careers.