You hacked my program? Teaching cybersecurity using game-based learning

Abstract

As cyberthreats become more commonplace, the teaching of cyber- security concepts at an introductory level is becoming increasingly important. However, teaching this subject in an engaging manner is challenging. This work investigates the use of a game-based learn- ing approach to teaching cybersecurity concepts in the form of a card game called Program Wars. Within the game, players use cards to create a representation of a computer program while launching cyberattacks at their opponents and defending their own program. As the initial version of the game presented cybersecurity concepts at only a high-level, Program Wars v.2.0 was created to introduce players to eight common cyberattacks and the tools used to defend against them. The results of a user study show that after playing Program Wars v.2.0 a player’s knowledge of cybersecurity concepts is improved, showing that our game-based learning approach pro- vides an effective means for introducing cybersecurity concepts to those with little or no prior knowledge. As Program Wars is a freely available web-based game, it can easily be integrated into classes to improve a student’s knowledge of cybersecurity concepts.