Applying Virtualization and Cloud Computing Platform in Designing Cybersecurity Lab

In the explosive era of the 4th Industrial Revolution, cybercrime has become one of the most serious threats to the safety of nations. However, the training of cybersecurity professionals poses a series of practical challenges. Cost, space, time, and reproducibility are the main factors that prevent lecturers from building realistic experimental models for students. In that situation, Virtualization platforms provide a mechanism to create and deploy an authentic computer security lab experience for students. Besides, virtualization technology also helps to reduce system configuration time and reduce related hardware requirements. . The main purpose of this study is to propose setting up a virtual practice lab model, can be used to provide a safe environment for cybersecurity students to practice practical exercises on possible threats and countermeasures. The study focuses on how to leverage open source hardware virtualization platforms and other virtualization techniques to recreate an entire network environment consisting of multiple nodes on moderately equipped physical devices… We also propose some models and exercises to practice network security attacks as well as prevention that are close to reality. The practice of deploying virtualized cybersecurity labs based on open source virtualization platforms helps to reduce investment costs and can be deployed at many training institutions for cybersecurity professionals.