Securing CHEESEHub: A Cloud-based, Containerized Cybersecurity Education Platform

Mike Lambert, Rajesh Kalyanam, Rob Kooper, Baijian Yang

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

The Cyber Human Ecosystem for Engaged Security Education (CHEESEHub) is an open web platform that hosts community-contributed containerized demonstrations of cybersecurity concepts. In order to maximize flexibility, scalability, and utilization, CHEESEHub is currently hosted in a Kubernetes cluster on the Jetstream academic cloud. In this short paper, we describe the security model of CHEESEHub and specifically the various Kubernetes security features that have been leveraged to secure CHEESEHub. This ensures that the various cybersecurity exploits hosted in the containers cannot be misused, and that potential malicious users of the platform are cordoned off from impacting not just other legitimate users, but also the underlying hosting cloud. More generally, we hope that this article will provide useful information to the research computing community on a less discussed aspect of cloud deployment: the various security features of Kubernetes and their application in practice.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationPEARC 2021 - Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing 2021
Subtitle of host publicationEvolution Across All Dimensions
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
ISBN (Electronic)9781450382922
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 17 2021
Event5th Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing Conference: Evolution Across All Dimensions, PEARC 2021 - Virtual, Online, United States
Duration: Jul 19 2021Jul 22 2021

Publication series

NameACM International Conference Proceeding Series

Conference

Conference5th Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing Conference: Evolution Across All Dimensions, PEARC 2021
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityVirtual, Online
Period7/19/217/22/21

Keywords

  • Kubernetes
  • cloud computing
  • containers
  • cybersecurity

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
  • Computer Networks and Communications

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