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The University of Arizona is training the next generation of cybersecurity professionals by: Cyberapolisa virtual city built to host online education and cyber intelligence operations and training.
Designed at the University of Applied Science and Technology, the virtual learning environment includes banks, hospitals, large retailers, water companies, power companies, underground hacker communities, organized crime syndicates, and a growing number of smaller retailers.
There are also over 15,000 virtual personas developed by analyzing data from Twitter. Patterns in that data were used to create specific personality profiles run by advanced artificial intelligence programs. Each virtual persona has over 60 fictional data points, including full name and address, social security number, credit card information, login credentials for social media, banking, retail, and medical accounts.
Jason Denno, executive director of the university’s Cyber Convergence Center, says Cyberapolis is best described as a virtual city built within a closed system controlled by the university.
“We built a synthetic world that looks and feels exactly like the internet, even when you’re not connected to the internet,” Denno said. “In our company, he has over 100 different companies, he has five fully operational social media sites, and he has two online news outlets, including CNN and Fox News.
“Inhabiting this virtual city are virtual personas who do everything a normal human would do. They email each other, surf the web, make transactions in stores, maintain bank accounts, social Leave posts in the media and comment on news articles.”
Virtual learning environments are central to the Cyber Operations curriculum of the Faculty of Applied Science and Technology. CyberApolis serves as a safe, controlled training space for students to practice and hone their cybersecurity skills, without exposing them to the risks associated with performing the same work on the open internet, Be prepared for real-world challenges in the field.
The platform can simulate a variety of cyber-attack scenarios, giving students hands-on experience in identifying, mitigating, and responding to threats in a safe and controlled environment.
The university is one of 24 national universities designated as National Security Agency Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations as part of the National Academic Research Center Program in Cybersecurity administered by the NSA’s National School of Cryptography. The program establishes educational standards for cybersecurity curricula and works to develop solutions to the challenges facing cybersecurity education. The program offers designations in the areas of cyber defense, research, and operations.
The University of Arizona is taking a virtual city and all 15,000 of its inhabitants to the road this month, with representatives from the university and the University of Arizona Applied Research Corporation (also known as UA-ARC) introducing CyberApolis at the university’s booth. To do. National TechNet Augusta Conference, will be held in Georgia from August 14-17. UA-ARC was established to leverage the University’s strengths to foster mutually beneficial cooperation in a national security environment with special compliance considerations.
The TechNet conference, sponsored by the Military Communications Electronics Association, is a forum for members of the U.S. Department of Defense, military, and other intelligence professionals to discuss issues, share ideas, and announce products. .
UA-ARC President and CEO Austin Yamada said CyberApolis is not only the perfect tool for universities to educate the next generation of cyber professionals, but also for the Department of Defense. and other national security interests, he said. In a more restrictive production environment. Tools like CyberApolis could be used by other organizations to teach strategies, tactics, techniques and procedures for both defense and attack in a controlled environment, Yamada said.
“Creating and operating a sophisticated virtual environment like CyberApolis is no small feat,” he says. “Cyberapolis is a highly complex city in a virtual world. It’s the perfect environment to teach students things like how to protect critical infrastructure from cyberattacks and similar threats.”
Other universities and the Department of Defense have already licensed CyberApolis for their own purposes, and the platform also hosts simulations for various industries such as finance and marketing, allowing companies to bring their spending to the real world. You can test different products and scenarios without assigning Assets and Logistics.