Dr. Maryam Ramezanzadehmoghadam

The rise of Blockchain technology has been rapid and is becoming more popular now than ever before. Blockchain technology is mostly known for being the framework for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, but it can be applied to many areas and industries other than cryptocurrencies. Blockchain technology has managed to provide security, transparency, immutability, decentralization which help in keeping valuable data in place. Understanding blockchain is an essential part of cybersecurity professionals. However, with the ever-increasing demand for cybersecurity students to learn blockchain technologies, there are few hands-on labs/modules available for training current IT students, the future cybersecurity professionals. The objective is to develop a series of novel hands-on labs that would fit individual students’ needs for blockchain in various real-life applications.
The goal of this study is to educate current IT/cybersecurity students on the application of Blockchain in supply chain, digital evidence and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) through hands-on labs, which is helpful to integrate blockchain technologies into the current cybersecurity curriculum. These hands-on labs explore fundamental knowledge, such as the cryptographical computations and hashing algorithms behind blockchain. Meanwhile, students will be exposed to learning how to use the Ethereum platform, Remix, to create a smart contract and write codes in Solidity. In addition, the hands-on labs focus on asset and shipment tracking and decentralized storage for digital evidence through blockchain techniques.