Security challenges in IT infrastructure for cybersecurity curriculum support

With the evolving challenges in cyberspace there is a need for curriculum development in cybersecurity. Students in a cybersecurity curriculum need to access and learn about topics in cybersecurity such that they have a clear understanding of the sophistication of threats such that they can implement mitigation response. Development of hands on curriculum in cybersecurity therefore poses significant challenges to the information technology infrastructure in an instructional environment. Among the various challenges one of the significant challenges involves attack simulations of a cyber-attack requiring the creation of a walled infrastructure to accommodate the equipment where computing services are hosted. The challenges of containing malicious software which can be released by accident are also significant to the IT infrastructure. In this paper we show how the walled infrastructure with computing service can be created such that cybersecurity curriculum can be institutionalized where students locally and remotely can access this infrastructure. The walled IT infrastructure is based on risk escalation wherein connectivity and access to computing resources is contained as risk to computing infrastructure increases. We also show IT challenges in curriculum development on topics of hardware, software and networking for cybersecurity and how virtualization is a means for solving the challenges in those respective topics.