Educational website with cyber offense and defense demonstration

Abstract

Cyber security has come under the spotlight in recent years as cyber-attacks and threats continue to rise in recent years. Such trend is further fuelled by the increasing adoption of digital technology in our daily lives. Today, we make use of digital devices and technologies to live, work, and play. As we continue to embrace digital technology in all aspect of our lives, we inevitably become more exposed to the growing cyber threats in cyberspace. Therefore, it is important to understand how cyber-attacks are carried out and how sensitive information is obtained by cyber attackers so as to mitigate such risks.

The objective of this project is to raise cyber security awareness and cultivate interest in cyber security for students. In this report, cyber security threats and trends focusing on brute force, XSS and DoS is discussed. The project explores the implementation and demonstration of these topics through the use of an educational website and two virtual machines to play the role of an attacker and a victim. The educational approach adopts a hands-on learning approach which utilizes the virtual machines to simulate cyber-attacks. The demonstration covers the usage of popular cyber security tools such as Metasploit and BurpSuite. Common cyber-attack techniques are also taught through the use of Damn Vulnerable Web Application for the topics on Brute Force and XSS. The usage of Snort is also being taught as a defence against a simulated DoS attack.