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Project Summary

Overview
In the rapidly evolving information technology landscape, network security is a cornerstone of cybersecurity. Cybersecurity workforce training empowers the next generation of IT professionals to proactively mitigate risks and secure digital infrastructure against threats. But many cybersecurity training programs are limited to the study of theories, best practices, and protocols. Few programs offer exposure to network measurements where students can discern baseline behavior from sophisticated real-world network attacks. Addressing this gap requires both cutting-edge data science techniques and discipline-appropriate skills in advanced cyberinfrastructure (CI) in the classroom.

Several institutions provide rich publicly accessible Internet infrastructure datasets for research use, but using these real-world datasets presents two major challenges: scalability and complexity. First, prohibitively high compute and storage requirements for processing data pose a barrier to scale. Huge terabyte-scale datasets, sometimes containing sensitive information, are unsuitable for transfer to personal devices, which limits their access to those with sufficient resources. Second, educators and researchers may lack skills to use advanced CI. The steep learning curve discourages adoption of CI in courses and research. Our project addresses both challenges by leveraging existing NSF-funded CI to foster training and preparation of a diverse STEM cybersecurity workforce.

Building on CAIDA’s successful Internet Data Science for Cybersecurity course, our vision rests on three pillars: data-driven course materials, infrastructure support for executing and grading assignments, and a user-friendly platform to organize and share resources within the community. This project will develop and deploy a Cybersecurity Community Hub (C²Hub), a centralized catalog to catalyze the building, delivering, and sharing of CI-ready cybersecurity education and training resources in the cybersecurity training community. Our immediate goal is to provide the community a one-stop platform for CI-ready course modules enabling institutions, including under-resourced ones, to broaden the adoption of CI tools and resources in the Nation’s undergraduate and graduate cybersecurity curriculum. This resource will also enhance researchers’ abilities to efficiently use advanced CI to conduct data-intensive research. We thus pursue both major goals of the solicitation.

Our team will collaborate to optimize usability, dataset security, and use of modern software stacks that facilitate machine learning/artificial intelligence (ML/AL) techniques on the data. We will address technical and policy challenges in resource sharing across institutions and adopting advanced CI. We will seed the platform with course modules that provide hands-on experience in using CI to apply data science techniques to cybersecurity analyses. We will collaborate with PIs of a CyberTraining project (NSF grant CIP-2230127) at UC San Diego to integrate suitable modules into their training program. Two partners (JHU and Calvin U.), with different class sizes, campus CI resources, and student demographics, will help us identify pedagogical challenges in different settings. Seven collaborating institutions have committed to adopt the materials in their classes.

Project leads, key team members

kc claffy (CAIDA/SDSC/UCSD)
Ricky Ka-Pui Mok (CAIDA/SDSC/UCSD)
Alexander Marder (Johns Hopkins University)
Rocky Chang (Calvin University)

Broader Impacts

Our open-source curriculum will serve as a role model for other cybersecurity programs nationwide, accelerate adoption of CI in cybersecurity analyses, and expand and diversify the nation’s cybersecurity work force. A long-term goal of this project is to achieve lasting impact on the new School of Computing, Information, and Data Science (SCIDS) at UC San Diego, which offers undergraduate and graduate data science-related programs for ≈ 1,000 students. We will introduce our course materials into the curriculum of suitable SCIDS programs/courses at various levels.

Project Tasks

Pillar	Task #	Task Title	Detailed Description	Target Date	Subtasks
Pillar 1: Build Internet Data Science Framework (T1)	1.1	Conduct stakeholder analysis	(a) Perform stakeholder interviews to identify pedagogical hurdles and technical constraints in diverse institutions(b) Define user personas and use cases(c) Execute CI resource and security policy surveys across partner institutions• Stakeholder interviews: CAIDA, UCSD, JHU, Calvin, Daniel Zappala (BYU), Casey Deccio (BYU), Christos Papadopolous (Memphis), Ken Calvert (U. Kentucky), Jean (UNC-Charlotte), Raffaele Sommese (Twente), Romain Fontugne (IIJ), Arpit Gupta (UCSB), Joel Sommers (Colgate), Tijay Chung (VT), Mary Thomas (SDSC), Shouhuai Xu (UC Colorado Springs)g	Mar 2026	1. Conduct institutional interviews with MSIs and R1 partners to identify dataset portability constraints 2. Draft user personas and use case documentation for CI Contributors and CI Users
	1.2	Define platform requirements and data sharing policies	Formalize technical specifications for cybersecurity topics, module integration standards, and resource-sharing policies	Apr 2026	1. Define curriculum and environment specifications; identify supported topics and required software stacks 2. Establish metadata standards aligned with CAIDA resource catalog 3. Formalize multi-institutional access policies including RBAC and PII sanitization
	1.3	Migrate CAIDA Datasets to Cyberinfrastructure (CI)	Migrate datasets to CI platforms; prototype sanitization scripts; enforce RBAC for large-scale dataset access	Sep 2026	1. Provision Kubernetes namespaces on Nautilus/NRP 2. Develop automated PII sanitization pipeline 3. Implement role-based access control
	1.4	Scaffold platform components	Scaffold backend database and catalog; develop UI mockups; implement user roles	Oct 2026	1. Design dashboard and catalog wireframes 2. Build integration hooks to Nautilus S3 and CVMFS 3. Develop lightweight Python package for Jupyter integration and module tracking 4. Develop initial Hello World module and onboarding documentation
	1.5	Implement core features	Complete search and tagging; add CI job submission UI	Nov 2026
	1.6	Refine platform requirements based on pilot feedback	Update requirements based on classroom pilot usage	Jan 2027
	1.7	Integrate CAIDA SSO for unified user authentication	Implement CAIDA SSO integration	Jun 2027
	1.8	Perform UI/UX polish	Finalize UI/UX; conduct accessibility audit; publish documentation and API guides	Jul 2027
Pillar 2: Enrich Course Module Catalog (T2)	2.1	Develop dataset recipes and seed cybersecurity modules	Identify dataset recipes; refine into documented examples; seed three cybersecurity modules; develop container templates	Jun 2026
	2.2	Develop bridging modules for STEM students	Create bridging modules covering packet switching, IP, Python/pandas, and CI toolchains	Sep 2026
	2.3	Refine partner-driven module content	Update modules via feedback from JHU, Calvin, and BYU	Aug 2026	1. Synthesize classroom feedback 2. Iteratively refine modules 3. Adjust curriculum using pilot metrics 4. Integrate advisor recommendations
	2.4	Establish CI resource guidelines	Develop minimum and recommended CI resource guidelines	Feb 2027
	2.5	Expand module catalog	Expand to six modules; implement ML/AI support; optimize workflows	Mar 2027
	2.6	Implement course package libraries	Finalize ten-module curriculum; package for UCSD CyberTraining and SCIDS integration	Sep 2027
Pillar 3: Deliver Courses Using C2Hub (T3)	3.1	Launch project website	Deploy public resource discovery website	Apr 2026
	3.2	Conduct community outreach	Host biannual webinars; cross-institution workshops; annual planning meetings	Feb 2026; Aug 2026; Feb 2027
	3.3	Implement pilot courses on NRP	Onboard JHU and Calvin; deploy Jupyter notebooks; collect usability metrics	Jun 2026
	3.4	Develop autograder environment	Integrate nbgrader into NRP JupyterHub	Jul 2026 (one module); Mar 2027 (remaining modules)
	3.5	Publish educator support documentation	Create deployment and troubleshooting documentation	Jul 2026
	3.6	Facilitate course integration	Develop scripts and tutorials for CI setup and curriculum integration	Feb 2027
	3.7	Final community release	Coordinate release; host end-of-project symposium	Aug 2027
Pillar 4: Evaluation and Sustainability	4.1	Establish project governance	Establish faculty advisory board	Feb 2026
	4.2	Perform baseline surveys and metrics collection	Execute baseline surveys; conduct NRP load testing	Oct 2026
	4.3	Analyze evaluation results and identify gaps	Perform gap analysis; develop improvement plans	Oct 2026
	4.4	Identify scaling opportunities	Identify new institutional users and modules	Oct 2026
	4.5	Identify sustainability pathways	Identify follow-on funding sources	Jan 2027
	4.6	Conduct mid-project evaluation	Perform mid-project evaluation; integrate feedback mechanisms; conduct workshop	Oct 2026
	4.7	Update requirements for long-term sustainability	Refine multi-institutional resource-sharing requirements	Mar 2027
	4.8	Develop operational scaling plan	Create scaling and support plan	May 2027
	4.9	Document impacts and disseminate best practices	Publish final evaluation report and best practices	Oct 2027
	4.10	Transition to community-supported operations	Secure follow-on grants; publish maintenance roadmap	Oct 2027

Acknowledgment of awarding agency’s support

This material is based on research sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) grant OAC-2519416. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of NSF.