Features and architecture of the modern cyber range: a qualitative analysis and survey

Cotton, ChaseCybersecurity is one of the prominent global challenges due to significant increase in the number of cyber-attacks over the last few decades. To protect enterprises, personal data, productivity and to ensure a safe environment for work, cybersecurity awareness is very important. To prevent cyber infection, ad wares and to provide a consolidated solution, cybersecurity training is vital. Cybersecurity awareness and cyber security training are promoted by hyper-realistic virtual environments termed as cyber ranges. This study highlights the concept of cyber ranges, mainly in two sections. In the first section, several cyber ranges have been taken into consideration to identify significant attributes and classification based on several properties. An Ideal Cyber Range has been proposed taking into account the important parameters a cyber range should incorporate. In the second section, the Cyber Range at the University of Delaware has been introduced along with its fundamental working. The extensive study takes into account the components, scenarios and capabilities of the newly found cyber range. Finally, a comparison has been carried out between the already proposed Ideal Cyber Range and the Cyber Range at the University of Delaware to comprehend the proximity between the two. This would be of great assistance in future for determining the strength and weaknesses of the Cyber Range at University of Delaware considering what the range is capable of at present and what could be done in future for the Range to become Ideal. We rely on different graphs to bring out the variation between the Ideal Cyber Range and The Cyber Range at the University of Delaware on basis of certain parameters.University of Delaware, Department of Electrical and Computer EngineeringM.S