Gamification of cyber ranges in cybersecurity education

There is a lack of cybersecurity experts, and this problem is getting worse with the increasing number and importance of IT systems together with rising number and sophistication of attacks. Rapid development in cybersecurity necessitates constant training and practice to keep up with the latest threats. Studying IT, and especially cybersecurity is considered difficult and there is an urgent need to encourage interest of students in this field. One promising avenue to improving the situation is gamification. Gamification has been used in education to improve enthusiasm of students, increasing their numbers, information uptake and retention. Leveraging social connections and human competitiveness can further motivate students to take part and engage in the learning activities they would otherwise not consider. Virtualized environments offer means to scale up the practical training as well as share latest teaching methods. Cyber ranges used by educational institutions often are such open platforms that provide such practical cybersecurity training. Moreover, with some thoughtful planning they can prove to be popular serious games. In this paper, we explore opportunities for hands-on cybersecurity education by using gamified scenarios in cyber range virtualized environment. We focus on cyber testing environments, what their types are, and what it includes. We place emphasis on creating basic game scenario close to real-world situations.