A scenario CTF-based approach in cybersecurity education for secondary school students

Abstract

Cybersecurity education topics require technical understanding. However, it is a challenging task for any teacher to introduce topics to students who have no technical background. Recently, the concept of gamification has been implemented as a tool to inculcate student’s interest using a variety of popular in-games techniques and applying them to educational modules. Extending from this notion, it was found that Capture the Flag (CTF) competition style is a successful way of introducing students to various technical concepts in the standard computer science curriculum. During the 2019 school holiday, a CTF for secondary school students was run at Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN) with the primary goal of introducing secondary school students to various cybersecurity topics and also to inculcate their interest in cybersecurity. The method that we used is different from other CTF or similar events, in which we use a scenario-based approach. We found that this method attracts participants in solving each challenge in a competitive environment.