Students in a classroom sitting in front of computers.
The Virginia Cyber Range’s new advanced courseware is designed to help more experienced students further build their cybersecurity skills. Pictured are students from Spotsylvania High School in 2022, working on a ransomware lab. Photo courtesy Kristi Rice.

The Virginia Cyber Range can now offer advanced classes that mimic real-life cybersecurity scenarios thanks to the range’s Cloud Architecture and Software Development teams. These teams worked for months to augment the cyber range infrastructure to allow for more complex network environments for students.

Historically, the infrastructure has provided access to simple, flat networks in support of introductory to intermediate cybersecurity courses. In order to better support more advanced classes and topics, the cyber range now has the ability to support complex, routed networks, and even the ability to deploy competition environments where student teams can defend their own networks while attacking other teams.

"Most of the educators who use the cyber range teach beginner to intermediate cybersecurity courses. Although we support them very well, as we mature, we want to be able to support more advanced classes. This advanced networking capability will provide support for larger, routed networks and even attack/defend-style competitions between student teams. We are excited to be able to support instructors with more sophisticated requirements" said David Raymond, director of the Virginia Cyber Range.

Student teams can now connect to each other and to the internet via network firewalls that they configure to protect their networks. These firewalls have an outward facing interface on the same subnet. Instructors can control student teams’ access to each other’s networks. This lets instructors give the students time to harden their own networks before teams are unleashed and allowed to attack other networks while defending their own.

Thanks to the work of the Virginia Cyber Range’s Cloud Architecture and Software Development teams, students will be more prepared to enter the cybersecurity workforce.