Abstract

Cyber-attacks on educational institutions are increasing in volume and threats. Many schools and universities alike do not have the expertise or budget to operate sufficient information security operations. Such operations can lead to breaches that compromise confidentiality, integrity, and availability (C.I.A) of data, which can lead to fines, penalties, and reputational damages against the institution. To address this, the 2024 Ohio Cyber Guardian Range Team was tasked with creating a virtual environment to train the Ohio Cyber Reserve (OhCR) Blue Teams in identifying, assessing, and mitigating threats through the Ohio Cyber Guardian exercise. Our solution used Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to stand up and tear down this environment with ease. The technologies used were Terraform for provisioning and PowerShell/Ansible for post provision configuration. The initiative highlights the importance of educational cybersecurity training in a complex digital realm and demonstrates the scalability and reliability of virtual environments.