Students practice foiling cyberattack
FORT KENT, Maine — How can an organization learn how to respond to a cyberattack without fending off an actual attack? It’s a puzzle that University of Maine at Fort Kent Professor of Computer Science Dr. Raymond Albert and about 45 other people are solving with the help of a secure simulation environment they are testing this fall.
Students gathered recently at UMFK, the University of Southern Maine (USM) and York County Community College (YCCC) for training in how to use the new cybersecurity “collaboratory” — a combination of collaboration and laboratory — and then returned to defend their systems from a simulated attack.
The collaboratory provides a secure virtual environment within the University of Maine System to allow students and researchers to essentially engage in cyberwar games without endangering the rest of the digital world. Albert said, “It’s a National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored research project in which the UMFK and USM and YCCC are partnering, and the primary purpose of the NSF activity is to explore the development of a cybersecurity collaboratory.”
Since last year, Albert has worked with other cybersecurity experts in the university system to develop materials for a new bachelor of science in cybersecurity. The virtual lab became a reality last spring with its first simulation activity. Two more simulations are taking place this fall.
The simulations will allow five students at each campus to work together. They will play roles in three simulated companies and will have to respond to a simulated attack on the systems.
“These companies are faced with attacks, and the students respond to the attacks as best they are able to by working collaboratively with their counterparts at the other site locations,” said Albert. “The focus is not necessarily on the attack, per se, or how the students specifically respond to the attack technically. The focus is on how the students communicate and collaborate with their colleagues in distant locations.”
Almost 50 people are involved in the simulations, including Edward Sihler, Jim Owens and Lynn Lovewell of USM; Arthur Drolet and the UMFK library staff in Fort Kent; and Mark Monnin at YCCC. The researchers will record the students during the simulation and use the results to further develop the simulated collaboratory.
“It’s an example of the fun and exciting activities that students in cybersecurity can be involved with,” added Albert.
The cybersecurity degree program became available this fall.
