Online assessment for hands-on cyber security training in a virtual lab

Online (self) assessment is an important functionality e-learning courseware, especially if the system is intended for use in distant learning courses. Precisely for hands-on exercises, the implementation of effective and cheating-proof assessment tests poses a great challenge. That is because of the static characteristics of exercise scenarios in the laboratories: adopting the environment for the provision of a “unique” hands-on experience for every student in a manual manner is connected with enormous maintenance efforts and thus not scalable to a large number of students. This work presents a software solution for the assessment of practical exercises in an online lab based on virtual machine technology. The basic idea is to formally parameterize the exercise scenarios and implement a toolkit for the dynamic reconfiguration of virtual machines in order to adopt the defined parameters for the training environment. The actual values of these parameters come to use again in the dynamic generation of multiple-choice or free-text answer tests for a web-based e-assessment environment.