“Hacking an IoT Home”: New opportunities for cyber security education combining remote learning with cyber-physical systems

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a dramatic shift in educational practice, whereby home-schooling and remote working became the norm. Many typical schools outreach projects to encourage uptake of learning cyber security skills therefore were put on hold, due to the inability to physical attend and inspire. In this short paper, we describe a new approach to teaching cyber security with a view of inspiring a new generation of learners to the subject. Traditional Capture-The-Flag exercises are widely used in cyber security education, whereby a series of challenges are completed to gain access and obtain a passphrase from a computer system. We couple this approach with interactive sessions made possible via video conferencing platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom, along with the very nature of being in the home environment, where home IoT devices are now commonplace. We develop an integrated CTF for the home IoT environment, where students can observe the impact of submitting flags via online video, to physical adjust the home environment - ranging from switching off lights, playing music, or controlling an IoT-enabled robot. The result is a highly interactive and engaging experience that benefits from the very nature of remote working, inspiring the notion of "hacking an IoT home".