Effecting mobile security awareness and interest in cybersecurity using the CovertEyeOp mobile app driven user hack based learning approach

• Published in: Education and information technologies 2024-07, Vol.29 (10), p.12527-12568
• Main Authors: Poe, Tyler, Chattopadhyay, Ankur
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Computer Appl. in Social and Behavioral Sciences; Computer Science; Computers and Education; Cybersecurity; Education; Educational Technology; Experiential Learning; Information Systems Applications (incl.Internet); Learning activities; Learning Strategies; Middle schools; Special Issue on: Information Technology Education; Teaching Methods; User Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction
• ISSN: 1360-2357; 1573-7608
• DOI: 10.1007/s10639-023-12266-7

Existing research literature in computing and IT education shows that there has been limited work on investigating how offense based learning approaches using hacks can enhance learning of mobile security topics. In an effort to fill this research gap, we performed an experimental study with a unique, nifty user hack driven offense based learning strategy to effect mobile security awareness and interest in cybersecurity at the high school and middle school levels, as described in this work. A highlight of our novel study is our original CovertEyeOp mobile app, which was designed and developed strategically to be the driving force towards implementing our hacking based offense driven leaning technique. In this research, we carried out a comparative analysis of our app based offense driven learning approach with other relevant works on mobile security education. To conduct experiments with our user hack driven offense based learning strategy, we created a hands on experiential learning activity using our CovertEyeOp app, which educates users about security and privacy issues in mobile devices by hacking them and enabling them to self-discover issues with user permissions given to mobile apps. We offered this unique mobile app based learning activity to 90 participants (both students and teachers) primarily from the high school community across different states over multiple years and have collected quantitative plus qualitive data in the form of survey responses from these various users. Additionally, we discuss our earlier experiments of hosting an older version of our mobile app based lesson with 100 middle school students. We analyze this gathered learner data from the overall 190 participants’ survey responses to determine whether our app driven offense based learning approach works and makes a difference in terms of fostering K-12 learning and engagement through acquired evidence of increased mobile security awareness and interest in cybersecurity. Overall, our study results in unique findings that show the prospects, benefits, and efficacy of including a user hack driven offense based learning strategy in K-12 teaching of mobile security topics. In the process, it advocates for the usage of this unique, non-traditional learning approach in cybersecurity education.