Remote Controlled Cyber: Toward Engaging and Educating a Diverse Cybersecurity Workforce

Cybersecurity education has grown exponentially to support the need for a skilled cybersecurity workforce. Further, capture-the-flag competitions have popularized cybersecurity by engaging and recruiting students while exposing them to cybersecurity workforce competencies. However, the heavy reliance on competition-based educational approaches may contribute to the lack of diversity in cybersecurity programs. Cybersecurity competitions are the primary catalyst to expose and recruit students from both high school and collegiate cybersecurity education programs. In response, we propose a collaborative, experiential learning approach that leverages hackable Internet of Things (IoT) toys as a pedagogical tool for cybersecurity education. We share our detailed design, activities, experiences, and lessons learned for others to build on our initial success.