CYBER-DEFENSE TRAINING IN THE REAL - Design Principles and Architecture of the VNEL Cyber-training Platform

摘要

We present the Virtual Network Engineering Laboratory, which creates a high-fidelity, multi-platform, remotely accessible environment where students obtain hands-on experience in network engineering and operation and in cyber defense and infrastructure protection. The facility focuses on access to real equipment in a realistic yet isolated setting isolation allows for a broad variety of activities without danger to the surrounding operational networks, and it allows the students to learn from mistakes on equipment that is both real and well protected. The Laboratory supports fine-grained, detailed instrumentation of user activities and allows for experiments on a wide variety of real networking equipment. Real equipment is emphasized over simulation for the sake of (a) fidelity of both intended and non-intended modes of operation, (b) extendability to other protection domains such as cyber physical systems, and (c) instrumentability of student-system interactions to support run-time assessment and on-demand scaffolding.