Using CTFs for an Undergraduate Cyber Education

Authors: 

Martin Carlisle, Michael Chiaramonte, and David Caswell, United States Air Force Academy

Abstract: 

Over the last five years, the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) has participated in numerous Capture the Flag (CTF) and other cyber competitions. At first, this was simply an extracurricular club activity; however, as we have seen the impact on student motivation and learning, we have greatly increased student and faculty participation. Additionally, we have started to base entire for-credit courses on a CTF framework. In this paper we discuss our rationale for utilizing CTFs as part of our formal curriculum, as well as key lessons learned relating to student engagement and avoiding cribbing. 

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BibTeX
@inproceedings {191759,
author = {Martin Carlisle and Michael Chiaramonte and David Caswell},
title = {Using {CTFs} for an Undergraduate Cyber Education},
booktitle = {2015 USENIX Summit on Gaming, Games, and Gamification in Security Education (3GSE 15)},
year = {2015},
address = {Washington, D.C.},
url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/3gse15/summit-program/presentation/carlisle},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = aug,
}
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