Author: Circadence

Solid, well-paid long-lasting careers in cybersecurity messaging is everywhere. These cybersecurity jobs are in demand, yet there are not enough people to fulfill the many roles that make up this industry. As a result, your classrooms fill up with eager learners ready to start their transition into cybersecurity.

How do you prepare them for the ever-changing job market and rise above their competition: job automation?

With the continued advancements in technology over the last decade in combination with the current pandemic’s impact, it’s clear that we have fully transitioned into an informational society. With this societal shift, the third wave of education is in momentum.

The Third Wave: Demand-driven Education

A collaboration between educators and workplace industry leaders

“Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.” – John Donne 

Since the 1980s, there have been calls for educational reform. In “The Search for Meaningful Reform: A Third-Wave Educational System (opens new window)” publication by Charles M. Reigeluth, Charles pinpoints the American schools’ problems to the educational system’s structure (the teaching process and its organization). In essence, the current system erodes the desire to learn and disheartens those who teach.

For example, Charles illustrates how past educational systems worked for their respective society:

• The First Wave: one-room schoolhouse served the agricultural society
• The Second Wave: timed, rotating group-level instruction served the industrial society (and continues to serve us today)

Charles goes deeper into his parallels of the second wave of education, which serves us today, by comparing our current system to an assembly line. Groups of 20 – 40 students rotate through teachers in timed increments to learn various subjects throughout the day. It’s the students and teachers for whom the bell tolls to lead and end the day.

While computers have been in classrooms since 1965, it wasn’t until 1971 that microcomputers were developed and made more accessible to educational institutions. This rapid advancement in technology and information is acknowledged in Charles’ publication as he writes,

“As we enter deeper into a “third-wave”, highly technological, rapidly changing, information-oriented society, the present structure of our educational system will become more and more inadequate, both from the society’s point of view and from the school’s point of view, not to mention the child’s point of view.”

Hey, come back to the present time with me. Let’s ask ourselves, does this assembly line educational structure fit our highly technological, information-oriented society today, especially given the huge spike in technology usage due to the current pandemic? Or, has society, schools, and the students who attend them realized the current educational system is indeed inadequate?

In 2012, this third wave developed the name Demand-driven Education. Then, in 2018 Joe Deegan and Nathan Martin published “Demand Driven Education Merging work and Learning to develop the human skills that matter” to illustrate actionable steps to adopt demand-driven education.

According to the report,

“Demand-driven education adapts to the needs of the learner and the employer. It responds to signals from society to ensure alignment between desired qualifications and available training.”

What’s remarkable about this wave is that educational and professional leaders are coming together to learn from each other and lead Demand-driven education. The authors go on to outline these five actionable steps:

1. Develop and measure the specific skills that will be most in demand, especially interpersonal skills and complex thinking.
2. Utilize dynamic and work-based pedagogy to grown learners’ competencies, while also preparing educators to embrace new forms of teaching and learning.
3. Respond to the needs of the labor markets to ensure continuous alignment
4. Create flexible and adaptive pathways to allow learners to rapidly convert learning to earning
5. Support changes that make the entire education landscape function better, enabling traditional and alternative providers to participate in creating the future of education alongside industry

This model serves as the new blueprint for implementing demand-driven education in classrooms.

From a pedagogical perspective, the authors state:

“To impart the skills that will matter most in the workplaces of the future, teaching and learning must fundamentally shift from a paradigm of knowledge transfer to one of collaborative insight; from auditorium to laboratory.”

In other words, learners need more accessible paths to interactive technology and hands-on experiences coupled with collaborative conversations between educator and student.

Realistic Hands-on Labs: The Proxy between Classroom and EdTech

Leave it to the user to find a completely different use for a tool

“EdTech tools aren’t “new” in the cybersecurity field. They have been used to teach aspiring professionals for many years, yet their wider adoption during the pandemic has made the EdTech presence more visible in cyber classes. Cyber EdTech has fostered more teacher-student collaboration through engaging, interactive and even realistic cyber range environments.” – Mike Moniz, Co-Founder, President, and CEO of Circadence 

Just as computers have come a long way from their initial purpose as calculating machines to providing endless opportunities, EdTech has evolved in much of the same way. How? Summarizing Caleb Clark, the general population has found a way to humanize technology through education.

The dynamics of educators and industry leaders working together have created a more relevant, engaging, and responsive learning environment with EdTech tools. They’re providing realistic scenarios and immersive hands-on labs that align with the needs of the industry and the way learners function today.

Realistic hands-on labs have become a proxy between traditional classroom and alternative EdTech teaching methods. They offer practical experience to a learner and allow the educator to experiment with their curriculum and develop creative collaboration.

When you think of hands-on labs, what comes to mind? Do you think of a scientific hands-on laboratory? Chemistry or life science class?

The likelihood of saying yes to the last two questions is high. How is it that many of those who took high school chemistry or biology classes still remember them more so than other classes? Science-based classes have found that hands-on labs work as engaging tools that help students evolve their thinking processes.

“Research has shown that students who engage in well-designed laboratory experiences develop problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, as well as gain exposure to reactions, materials, and equipment in a lab setting. Sustained investments in hands-on experiences help inspire students to further their education and prepare them for high-technology careers by fostering skills sought by potential employers.” – ACS Chemistry for Life

Hands-on labs reveal diverse ways students learn while still getting to the educator’s conclusion. For example, imagine the excitement of a teacher when a student grasps a concept for the first time but not in a way the teacher expected. This outcome immediately invites a dialogue about the learning process between the two; thus, improving both learning and teaching in the classroom.

Naturally when environments prove successful, certifications follow.

The Rise of Competencies

Upskilling opportunities are necessary to beat out the competition throughout the longevity of one’s career

Work doesn’t finish at the end of the day, and neither does education. The growing desire to learn well past the traditional years of college comes in many formats:

• Master and Ph.D. programs
• Self-paced, online courses
• Certifications
• Bootcamps
• Social media videos

Similar to the evolution of technology and EdTech, the thinking around competency-based education (mastering skills at one’s own pace) is shifting. Instead of replacing traditional learning, incorporating competency-based education can have a major impact as a supplement to a learning environment.

Where to incorporation competencies in a demand-driven educational structure should be considered between educators and industry professionals. Currently, it’s typically pursued by the student or encouraged by the workplace. Imagine how many more learners would upskill if it was widely promoted and supported by educational institutions? Competencies such as the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) are looking to create wider student inclusivity by partnering with academia to build curriculums, courses, and research that master in-demand job skills.

While classrooms may start with eager learners, do they stay to finish the program? Reports of decreasing college enrollment are multiplying for many reasons. However, if we truly analyze the root cause, we’ll find the problem is with the educational structure. It no longer aligns with how students learn in school or maintain success in the professional world.

Demand-driven Education: Advocate for Wide-Spread Adoption

If education is to meet the promises of the professional world, now more than ever is a time to push harder for widespread adoption of the third wave: demand-driven education. As educators and industry leaders, let’s come together to advocate for an educational structure that works for today’s learners rather than lose our students and educators due to an outdated assembly line.

Are you ready to start that new year’s resolution? For many, resolutions mean losing weight and getting stronger by working out. If this is you, how have you decided to work out?

• Doing it yourself
• Joining a few classes
• Going to the gym
• Getting a personal trainer
• Using a fitness app
• All of the above

What does a getting fit resolution have to do with learning Linux? The correlation between exercise and learning cybersecurity tools like Linux may surprise you. The gym metaphor has everything to do with HOW you learn.

Last year, I didn’t decide to get stronger as a new year resolution or even in January. I wanted to get fit for an active, outdoor lifestyle. After researching my options, I decided to join a gym, partly because I’d rather rent equipment than store gym equipment at my house that I most likely won’t use on a regular basis.

I read many articles and watched countless YouTube videos to build a workout program. Each month I created new routines that included cardio and weightlifting. I saw the results, and then I plateaued. Then I got tired? Bored?

Making a Cyber Education Investment

Today, it’s so easy to learn how to do something new such as Linux or figuring out the proper form for the overhead press. So, why pay to learn?

Aside from paying for a gym membership, I felt like a self-learner in the beginning. After doing my research, my workout plan was solid. It was my intensity that waned over time. I started running slower or shorter distances. I didn’t challenge myself as I would have in a class environment. I didn’t have anyone to encourage me, tell me if I was using the proper technique, or if I’m using the machine correctly. Completely working out by myself was no longer working for me as I progressed. The same experiences could apply to learning Linux as well.

Many people try free courses and end up quitting. However, quitting is not necessarily due to a lack of motivation. Learning something on your own takes a lot of accountability and maintenance. Sustaining that is hard work. There’s also a group of people who can learn Linux on their own but can’t maintain it because it involves figuring out how to continuously come up with hands-on practice.

Linux is a basic operating platform, but it comes with extras. Learning the Linux distros, programs, terminology, and how it all works together takes a lot of time, research, and finding your own resources. The options can feel endless and overwhelming. If you do choose the self-educational route, how do you maintain your skills after learning from free tutorials?

The Empowerment of an Instructor

Instead of quitting, I changed how I performed my self-motivated workout routine. I worked out less on my own and replaced those times with group classes. In these classes, I now had an instructor to

• Design challenging workouts
• Show me how to use new machines
• Refine my technique and form

The instructor provided an expert-level yet personal perspective that I was missing in my routines.

Now, I train regularly with improved routines that are re-engaging. Instead of designing and aligning my workout plans each month, my mentality focuses on the technique and retains the knowledge I learned from my class.

Am I worried about becoming bored in these classes? Nope. The instructor has the expertise and tools to optimize the routines for the next level of effort.

Now what if you are a cyber instructor reading this article, how do you relate? Do you have the tools to optimize your teaching goals for Linux, or do you feel like a taskmaster going through a checklist?

Similar to a physical gym, there is a cyber gym (cyber range) with a trainer mode for you to teach with and a player mode to learn from as a student. They also include prebuilt equipment in one place and come with a team of resources, which saves you time and money.

Now in this cyber gym, there is a Battle Room where learners can get their hands-on foundational skills, such as Linux, using realistic cybersecurity scenarios. Cybersecurity EdTech tools, like Project Ares, provide the hands-on practice that cybersecurity students need to achieve their learning goals. Not only is a cyber learning platform engaging, but it can easily align with your existing cybersecurity curriculum.

Teach Linux Fundamentals with Hands-On Practice

So, how do you maintain your Linux skills in a cyber training ground? Nick Fritz, Project Ares Consultant, says:

“Cybersecurity learning platforms, such as Project Ares, provide you with fundamental Linux tasks to practice within the context of a gamified environment.

Most students don’t use Linux as an operating system in their everyday lives. So, the ability to get hands-on practice in a command-line completing common Linux activities in a safe, visualized environment is important. In this type of environment, the learner’s engagement increases, and their hesitancy decreases because there is nothing to ‘mess up’.”

Should students get stuck, Project Ares has an in-game advisor and access to hints to help them through a scenario objective or task. For instructors, there are options to monitor their students’ live play and scores. For an extra challenge, instructors can disable hints for “graded” or assessment-style teaching techniques.

Digital forensic and cybersecurity professionals are in high demand. To keep up with this demand, educational institutions have nurtured the digital forensics program since the late 1970s. As the program grows, its curriculums and tools evolve to keep up with modern threats. However, this level of advancement, at such as quick pace, creates teaching challenges for educators.

What Are Your Digital Forensics Teaching Challenges?

During the Project Ares’ Live Play of Battle Room 9 Digital Forensics Webinar (opens new window), we polled our attendees about the teaching challenges they felt hindered their progress. Their responses:

1. 33% answered, lack of subject matter expertise
2. 67% answered, difficulty designing hands-on lab experience

Experiential learning (opens new window), also known as learning by doing, comes with many life-long learning benefits for students. In digital forensics, experiential learning prepares students for a hands-on, cyber investigative environment. However, adopting and sustaining experiential learning also carries its challenges for educators with complex curriculums or under-developed cyber programs. We’ve learned through our research and conversations with educators that digital forensic teaching challenges include:

• Implementing hands-on labs
• Designing a cyber range
• Having minimal resources

So, what are the solutions to these digital forensics teaching barriers (opens new window)? There are many ways to look at these complications, and there are just as many ways to solve them. Let’s examine a few of these solutions.

 

Teaching Challenge #1: Digital Forensics Curriculum Planning

There’s more content than there’s time to teach it. Careful planning and time go into creating a purposeful curriculum that will advance future digital forensic experts (opens new window). The thought of adding hands-on labs may feel daunting. They also take time out of your lecture and meaningful discussion. In short, there’s a lack of time to plan and incorporate them into your teachings.

Yet, in the digital forensics hands-on profession, they’re necessary. That’s why, by design, many hands-on labs supplement classroom theory.

Core Curriculum Elements

Designing a class curriculum or a full-blown course to align with hands-on labs doesn’t have to be overwhelming or intimidating. Try these three tips to guide you in your planning:

1. Customize your curriculum to your student’s needs
2. Make pivots in your lesson plan to suit your students as they progress
3. Give yourself enough time to plan ahead

Remember the basics! As an educator, you’re likely familiar with these core curriculum-building elements. Use them to help you identify where hands-on labs will be an asset to your students’ learning. Remember, you can always pivot along the way to adjust for how well your students are progressing. One of the benefits of experiential learning is that hands-on practice accurately assesses when and where students need extra time to grasp the learning material.

However, aligning your curriculum to hands-on practice alone isn’t enough to help you overcome your challenges. You need the tools to get you there.

 

Teaching Challenge #2: Designing InfoSec Hands-on Labs

The effectiveness of experiential (opens new window) learning in digital forensics, as in cybersecurity, is through the implementation of hands-on labs. Better yet, it’s an engaging cyber range. Providing realistic scenarios for your students to practice their skillset is invaluable to their learning and cements your lectures in their minds.

Where the challenge comes in is designing an information security range. In fact, our poll revealed this as the biggest pain point. Why? Home-grown, home-built cyber ranges are expensive and laborious to maintain.

• Do you have subject matter experts available to write up and validate the content?
• How about the time to gather the open-source tools?
• Can your software skills execute the content in an engaging environment that aligns with real-world scenarios?
• Who provides the tech support and maintains the environment?

If you can, that’s awesome! If this doesn’t sound like something you want or can do, why reinvent the wheel? Educators don’t have time to do this, nor do they need to. These cyber EdTech platforms exist and come with experts, resources, and support. Save your time and save your money, by finding an existing platform that fits your teaching needs.

Teaching Challenge #3: Minimal Cyber EdTech Resources

Although, teaching digital forensics involves more than just embracing and sustaining a new teaching approach. The addition of a virtual cyber range can change your position in the classroom. In addition to teaching your students, you’ll need to facilitate instructional delivery with labs.

Most educators can manage to teach and facilitate this type of experiential learning tool. However, it’s not ideal for everyone. Educators have varying degrees of comfort when it comes to adopting technology in the classroom. To increase your tech comfort, review your capabilities and identify where you need the most help and who can help you.

Once you identify your needs, choosing the right platform can actually save you time. With the right EdTech platform resources, consider working with a teaching assistant who can provide you with options:

• Train you how to execute the cyber range
• Facilitate your cyber learning environment while you teach
• Teach the digital forensics hands-on labs while you facilitate

A teaching assistant is a great resource to support cyber range adoption. Having someone who encourages progress and allows you to get back to what you do best: teaching. You can talk through ideas with each other and determine where you’re needed the most in the classroom.

Aside from a teaching assistant, ensure that your team includes tech support. They’ll minimize your stress and maximize your time by applying a fix on the spot. Selecting a solution that provides these turnkey resources built-in should be a high priority for any educator seeking EdTech teaching support.

Experiential learning done right can offer solutions to these teaching challenges. Connect your core curriculum building blocks with the right resources to help you simplify administrative teaching duties, empower your classroom culture, and demonstrate teaching success.

Innovate Your Digital Forensics Classroom with Experiential Learning

With the right planning, tools, and teams in place, you’ll experience tangible evidence of experiential learning progress. We’re talking about the type of progress that fosters innovation. In other words, the hands-on cyber learning your students will achieve in your classroom will directly translate into the work your students will do in the professional world. 

Whether you are a beginner or incredibly advanced in cybersecurity expertise, you’ll find that Project Ares can help you as an instructor or student. After all, our commitment is to you and your students. We want to help empower, educate, encourage, and equip you to overcome these teaching barriers.

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Attendees will learn:

• How to practically adopt and deploy hands-on learning in the cyber classroom
• Strategies to utilize on-demand cyber training to enrich the curriculum
• First-hand stories of teaching during the pandemic

Listen in to hear how one of Project Ares’ realistic cybersecurity scenarios empowers law enforcement nationwide!

Zoe Thomas , Host and Producer of WSJ Tech News Briefing on Spotify , interviews James Rundle , WSJ Pro Cybersecurity reporter, about the United States Secret Service’s role in cybersecurity. For example, Rundle talks about what he saw at the National Computer Forensics Institute’s (NCFI) National Cyber Games October, 2021.  At this event, officers refreshed their cybersecurity education to solve a Project Ares’ real-world scenario! Listen to the podcast to hear the audio clip.

Are All Crimes Cyber Related?

Almost any crime can be considered a cybercrime . In Rundle’s interview, Jeremy Sheridan, the Assistant Director of the Office of Investigations at the Secret Service, explains:

“From our perspective, there is no element of criminality anymore that doesn’t..that isn’t cybercrime. Whether it’s the opportunity to commit the crime, the methods to execute it, the means to profit from it, it all involves…you know…some element of cyber. And that’s why it’s so important for us to have the NCFI, to have partnerships across all of government because it is so wide-reaching and so pervasive that…and so much work to go around that we all have to have a hand in it.”

This past year, President Biden signed an executive order aimed to improve cybersecurity . This order allows the sharing of cybersecurity information between the public and private sectors.

Since cybercrime is so broad, front-line officers are now battling it in ways they did not in the past. Similarly, many of them did not receive the proper cybersecurity training.

How Effective is Cybersecurity Training?

That’s why in 2008 the Secret Service opened the National Computer Forensics Institute (NCFI) to provide nationwide cybersecurity training to law enforcement, National Guards, and FBI officers. At that time, it was clear that the growing amount of digital evidence from crime scenes far surpassed the government’s resources. Today, NCFI graduates from over 500 law enforcement agencies across the country fight to prevent evolving cybercrimes.

Lastly, Thomas’ asks Rundle, “And how effective is the training?” “I mean how much do these law enforcements use this?” His response:

“Pretty effective from what I gather from people I spoke to on the ground in Alabama last month. You know on a physical level, the NCFI not only trains them, it gives them the equipment as well which can serve as a mobile forensics lab which for many of these departments is beyond them in terms of resources and finance to do themselves. So that is a huge benefit to them.”

As for Thomas’ follow-up question? Be sure to listen to the Inside The Secret Service’s Training Lab for Cyber Crime Fighters podcast to hear that success story!

How long does it take to fill a digital forensics role with a qualified candidate?

As each year passes, there is a greater need to fill roles in digital forensics. This need places direct pressure on digital forensics and cybersecurity educators to quickly teach their students thoroughly.

If you are one of these educators, do you have the confidence that your current teaching tools help your students successfully fill this gap? Because right now, the students of today need to learn with the right tools to become the qualified candidates who are needed now.

So, let’s start with a review of your educational tools. Do they include a hands-on platform to teach digital forensic skills? For a hands-on industry, putting cyber readiness in the hands of learners should be literal. Therefore, you need a high-quality cyber range that

• Replicates real-world scenarios
• Aligns with your curriculum
• Allows you to assess your students’ skillsets

Extra bonus points if the cyber platform can minimally impact your time and save you money. 

Whether you have a cyber learning platform or are thinking about one, Project Ares is worth a look. It’s an award-winning cybersecurity EdTech platform that uses gamification and realistic cyber scenarios to confidently strengthen foundational and specialized skill  – including digital forensics. 

Let’s take at one of these foundational scenarios to learn how it works.

Digital Forensics Battle Room 9

In Project Ares, foundational scenarios are called Battle Room . These rooms (or labs) build cyber skills through a series of multilevel learning challenges. Each battle room focuses on a specific cyber task that is tied to building a specific skill set.

In Battle Room 9, your goal is to conduct trials in data recovery, disc image analysis, and forensics analysis using tools to provide you with the necessary facts to support the case.

Cybersecurity Forensics Tools

Here, you’ll receive hands-on experience with the following professional cybersecurity forensics tools:

Autopsy 

Battle Room 9 exposes you to several key forensic skills using Autopsy, a free end-to-end open source digital forensics platform. These skills include timeline analysis, hash filtering, keyword searches, artifact discovery, data carving, and multimedia analysis.

Ophcrack

Learners will use Ophcrack, another free and open source software, to crack passwords in the objective.

Registry Explorer

You’ll use Windows Registry Editor, a free software also known as Registry Explorer, to view and make changes to the Windows Registry. These changes include user and system data, changes to files and logs, timestamps, dates, passwords, and finding deleted files.

Project Ares Cyber Learning Catalog

Located on the Project Ares website, instructors and students can view all the Project Ares scenarios and its,

• Overviews (with instructors)
• Approaches: offensive vs. defensive
• NICE Competencies

If you’re a current Project Ares customer, you are considered a “Trainer” and can access the trainer-only variant of, the Cyber Learning Catalog. The Trainer or Instructor section reveals hints and answers to objectives in each scenario when you log in.

Digital Forensics Learning Outcomes

Successfully completing this scenario means you mastered the entry-level tasks of a Digital Forensics Analyst! You will also have learned how to

• Identify, gather, preserve, extract, interpret, and present evidence
• Crack passwords
• Seize a device
• Gain knowledge of forensics hardware and software applications

According to a Project Ares Team Member, “The Forensics Battle Room allows for students to get real-world experience working with forensics tools in a Windows machine. So, when they enter the workforce in the field of digital forensics, they have real hands-on experience.”

Digital Forensic NICE Competencies

On top of achieving the above learning outcomes, Project Ares labs also align to established NICE competencies. These competencies aim to develop standards and best practices with the goal of creating a skilled workforce in the cybersecurity industry.

For Battle Room 9, students will learn the following competencies:

• Business Continuity
• Computer Forensics
• Data Management
• Operating Systems
• Risk Management
• Threat Analysis

These learning outcomes and NICE competencies will empower your students to thoroughly demonstrate their in-demand digital forensics skills and transfer them to the professional world.

Project Ares Demo

For educators, a gamified learning platform can greatly improve your teaching strategy. So, are you ready to increase your classroom engagement, and empower and equip the next generation of cybersecurity professionals?