In my last post, I talked about my new course, Introduction to Cybersecurity and Ethical Hacking for High School, which is a course bringing together some great online resources to educate students on what goes on behind the scenes in the digital world. My course is only a basic introduction to cybersecurity. So what do you do when you complete the 11 lessons and the final test? Well, you could always continue going through the Cylab Academy challenges, and continue playing ThreatGen Red vs Blue, but there is so much more out there to have fun with. On my research journey to create my course, I came across some other great resources which I wanted to share, for those that want much more than my short intro.
Hacker Highschool
Modular Open-Source Courseware & Textbooks
This is a great website and resource created by The Institute for Security and Open Methodologies (ISECOM) which offers a full course along with a pdf for each of the 14 topics. The pdfs are really extensive, and go into each of the topics in good depth. The topics include Essential commands for using the Bash terminal; Beneath the internet, which goes into the network architecture that the internet and WWW relies on; and Defending Windows 10, which goes into more practical hands-on information about the operating system and keeping it safe. Each of the documents can take multiple hours to cover, so is a great resource for those that want more than an introduction. On top of this, the documents are available in a range of languages.
Link to Hacker HighSchool
Cyber.org
Standards-Aligned K–12 Core Curriculum
The cyber.org website is created and managed by the Cyber Innovation Center and provides an extensive catalog of curricula including topics like Cybersecurity basics, Cyber Literacy and Introduction to Linux, with some taking as much as 180 hours. Cyber.org has its own portal to distribute and manage its curricula and the material is pitched at various ages from Kindergarten to grade 12. The only downside is that this resource is only free for US-based educators.
Link to Cyber.org
TryHackMe
Guided Interactive Learning Sandbox & CTF Platform
TryHackMe is a cybersecurity education portal very similar to Cylab Security Academy. It features CTF-style hacking challenges, competitions and different pathways and modules for learning the theory and practical sides. TryHackMe is free, but also offers a pro subscription. Topics covered include Linux Fundamentals, Cryptography, Vulnerability Research, Advanced Client-Side Attacks and many many more.
Link to TryHackMe
PLTW Cybersecurity Course
Enterprise/Institutional Career & Technical Education (CTE) Curriculum
The Project Lead the Way (PLTW) Cybersecurity course is part of the wider Computer Science Curriculum that they have developed. The course covers 4 main units, Personal Security, System Security, Network Security and Applied Cybersecurity. Within these topics, the standard cybersecurity topics are covered, such as Firewalls and Malware, Cryptography, Analyzing the Net and many more. Each unit takes roughly 4 to 6 weeks to complete, with the activities within them taking days at a time. So there are plenty of resources to keep students busy. Unfortunately, this course is not free and can cost $2,200 annually, going up to $4,600 if training is included. This is the price of the whole Computer Science Curriculum, not just Cybersecurity, but I don’t think it is offered separately. PLTW offers standards mapping information for Computer Science Teachers Association K-12 Computer Science Standards (3A) and (3B), NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework, and Standards for Technological and Engineering Literacy, so this would be a good addition if your education system covers these.
Link to PLTW Computer Science Curriculum
OverTheWire
Unscaffolded Command-Line (CLI) Wargame
OverTheWire is a CTF style challenge website featuring a large range of challenges in different arenas. Bandit is the first arena recommended and it covers Unix/Linux basics. There are also arenas for challenges in other topics, like Natas for web security, Krypton for cryptography and Leviathan for reverse engineering. This is much less UI friendly than Cylab Academy or TryHackMe, as it features a plain text-based website with instructions, and challenges are only accessible directly via ssh connections. This may be an issue with school network restrictions, so please check with your administrator, if using it within an educational institution. However, the current use of OverTheWire within university cybersecurity courses, high school CTF clubs seems to prove that this can be managed without too much issue.
Link to OverTheWire
To consider
All the above are great resources, that are relevant for grades 9-12 apart from Cyber.org which has resources suitable all the way down to Kindergarten. However, instructors using these resources will require varying levels of expertise to make use of them. Hacker High School, Cyber.org and the PLTW resource comes with full documentation or with support available (PLTW at a hefty cost). So teachers will be able to gain the knowledge required by going over the materials before teaching students. However, TryHackMe, and OverTheWire may be less friendly to beginner instructors with less experience with CTF style hacking challenges. Whatever the case, there are plenty of resources, walkthroughs and people willing to help out there.
In conclusion, all resources cover a huge range of topics, enabling students to be fully equipped with the information they need to understand the cyber environment that we live in, and to protect themselves from many of the challenges they would meet.