Haakins: Cyber Security Training with Gamification

With increased digitalization, our societies have become more vulnerable to cyber attacks, and we are already seeing both criminal groups and nation states being very active in the cyber domain. This calls for action in order to better protect our societies, companies and people against these attacks. One of the main challenges with respect to this is the lack of skilled people -a gap that is expected to increase in the coming years. To increase the interest in cyber security among young people, and to increase the competence level among young people, Aalborg University together with a number of partners have developed the training platform Haaukins. It can easily be setup by teachers, who can select which challenges the students will work on - a typical session would contain around 10 challenges out of the 180 currently provided. The students are then presented with these challenges along with a virtual lab, which provides a closed and secure environment for working with cyber security. Upon solving challenges, the students can gain points and compete with their classmates. The workshop provides an overview of the platform, and then takes the participants through a typical training session which require no previous experience with computers, programing, or cyber security. The session consists of a short introduction to the platform, followed by a mix of short presentations, demonstrations, and independent work on challenges. After the session, a discussion on how the platform can be integrated in learning activities is facilitated. A particular focus in the discussion is how more diversity among the students can be achieved.