PhD student of Software Science Department Sten Mäses is defending his PhD thesis "Evaluating Cybersecurity-Related Competences through Simulation Exercises" on Wednesday, Dec 16, 2020 at 9 AM in ICT-411 (Akadeemia tee 15A) and via zoom.

There is a growing demand for effective cybersecurity education because creating and using various technologies in a safe and secure manner is becoming increasingly challenging. As it is difficult to improve what you cannot measure, having a proper competency evaluation is essential for effective cybersecurity education. Virtual cybersecurity simulations provide a scalable way to educate and evaluate people automatically.

The design science research methodology used in this thesis serves as a supporting framework for research and also for its structured presentation. The competency-driven exercise design approach suggested in this thesis is put to practice by several specifically created virtual simulations. In addition to illustrating the feasibility of competency-driven exercise design, these virtual simulations introduce novel technical solutions that demonstrate the versatility of serious games as an educational medium. The structured way of automatically evaluating competencies in virtual simulation exercises provides a scalable way to build a more effective, competency-based cybersecurity education.

Supervisor Prof. Olaf Manuel Maennel (Tallinn University of Technology)
co-supervisors Liina Randmann (Tallinn University of Technology)
and Prof. Stefan Sütterlin (Østfold University College, Norway).

Opponents:

• Prof Nickolas Falkner (University of Adelaide, Australia)
• Prof Petri Ihantola (University of Helsinki, Finland)

The PhD thesis is available in Tallinn University of Technology digital library.