Virtual information security testing system: Epsilon

Information security laboratories, composed mainly of isolated physical networks, are the most effective tools used in teaching the practical aspects of information security. Unfortunately, these are difficult to implement due to the amount of time and money required for the physical setup and maintenance. To address these issues, this study utilizes virtualization technology in order to create a library of virtual machines that serves as an information security laboratory. The use of virtual machines minimizes the resources required to implement a working laboratory. In order to effectively use these, the system has two primary components: the Epsilon Administrator and the Epsilon Server. The Epsilon Administrator facilitates the management of the system, while the Epsilon Server manages individual host machines. Through these components, the system is capable of performing several key tasks. These include the deployment of different virtual machines across multiple host machines and the monitoring of user activities. To verify the functionality of these components, several tests have been conducted. One of these measures the amount of time needed to setup an experiment. The result of this shows that for an experiment using three 922 MB virtual machines, setup proceeds at rate of roughly 39 seconds per virtual machine. The overall setup time amounts to approximately 2 minutes. Resetting the system takes approximately the same time. This allows the instructor dedicate more time to developing experiments rather than configuring and maintaining the system. These features along with the system\u27s performance, allows it to act as an information security laboratory