Creative Education
2012. Vol.3, No.4, 406-412
Published Online August 2012 in SciRes (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ce) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2012.34064
Copyright © 2012 SciRe s . 406
A New Construction Scheme for Information Security Lab
Li Zhu, Huaqing Mao, Zhiwen Hu
Wenzhou University Oujiang College, Wenz h o u , China
Received May 31st, 2012; revised June 28th, 2012; accepted July 10th, 2012
At present, it is urgent for us to build fully functional information security laboratory. In this paper, the
function and requirements of a new information security lab are analyzed. And a construction scheme for
information security laboratory is put forward. The lab not only provides services for teaching and train-
ing, but also provides security evaluation, authentication and extension services for local governments,
institutions and enterprises. Our teaching and training practice shows that the scheme of such information
security laboratory proposed in this paper is effective and reasonable.
Keywords: Information Security Laboratory; Construction Scheme; Extension Services
Introduction
At present, information security has become a comprehen-
sive, cross-discipline area, which integrated the accumulation
of knowledge and latest research results on computer, tele-
communication, microelectronics, mathematics, physics, and
many other areas. (Zhang, Huang, & Liu, 2004) Information
security is also a complex system, which involves the con-
struction of information infrastructure, networks and systems,
information systems and business application systems de-
velopment, information security laws and regulations and
safety ma nag e me nt sy st em e tc .
Therefore, information security is a direct project-oriented
and application-oriented professional field. Information se-
curity education is an engineering culture (Wang, Tan, &
Huang, 2006). If engine ering practice sy stem is e stablishe d in
colleges and universities, the students could carry experi-
ments and practice in the system, which will have great sig-
nificance in improving practical ability and the cognition
ability of technology (Gu & Huang, 2006). In the situation
where a great deal of security talents are required, the uni-
versities should play to their stre ngths to build an appropriate
information security laboratory with perfect functions.
Why to Build Information Security Laboratory
in Colleges and Universities?
The great development of globalization and informatization
has brought rare opportunities for China’s information industry
development, but it has also presented a serious challenge. The
rapid development of Internet has directly affected innovation
of science and technology, the development of information
industry and the rise of knowledge economy. Information net-
work is gradually becoming the foundation of economic pros-
perity, social stability and national development; at present, the
number of Internet users in China has reached 360 million. The
online transaction amount is as high as $30 billion every year.
However, the network brings unprecedented hidden danger to
our life. According to the estimation of National Computer
Network Emergency Treatment Coordination Center, the an-
nual production of dark industry formed by cybercrime has
exceeded $238 million, which results in a loss of more than
$7.6 billion. A page will become a hacker “dinner table” in
every 5 seconds; the rate of being experienced “network link”
for small and medium-sized web sites is up to 5 per thousand.
At the same time, with the evolution of network convergence
and next generation networks, a large number of new busi-
nesses and technologies without security evaluation have been
brought to the market. The inherent security risks in the IP
network are extending to other networks, which will lead to
more security risks. It is visible that information security issues
have changed from purely technical issue to global national
security issues. Along with the process of information deve-
loping, the increased information security risks and threats have
become the key problem of the national security and social
stability. Faced with the increasingly grim situation of network
information security, taking scientific and effective measures is
necessary and feasible.
At present, the talents of network technology tend to be
saturated. According to research report published by the com-
puter world news has estimated the demand for the national
information security talents will reach to more than 300,000.
Currently, quantity of information security engineer talents is
few; especially the compound talents are lacked. For example,
the network managers are not familiar with storage expertise
and storage management planning, and it is seriously short of
manpower for the professional storage device manufacturers
and service providers. There are few training institutions to
offer storage classes, even if they open the storage courses with
high training cost. It is forecasted that the demand of national
network storage talents is more than 600,000 per year. However,
it only offers around 10,000 a year presently, which indicates
that the demand gap is enormous.
From above analysis, we can see that the demand of network
information security talents in China is lacked, and the ability
of talents also need to be further enhanced. It is necessary and
urgent to build high level information security laboratory with
completed function in college and university. The laboratory
should meet the needs of different levels of information secu-
rity laborato ry base a n d talent training base, which will promote
practical ability training of the students, broaden students’ ideas

L. ZHU ET AL.
and vision, improve the quality of teaching, and finally provide
good conditions for cultivating innovative information security
talents in universities and colleges.
Current Status & Construction Target
With the development of the network and information tech-
nology, information security has become the key information
technology of 21st Century. Therefore, the ministry of educa-
tion has established information security professionals from
2000. Currently, there are more than sixty colleges to start the
information security major as well as the higher vocational
colleges. Domestic universities such as Wuhan University, Bei-
jing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Shanghai
Jiao Tong University have set information security major early
and constructed large-scale labs of information security. In
addition, each university or college who has opened informa-
tion security major, combined with their own characteristics,
put forward the suitable construction ideas for the laboratory
construction; however, there are still some limitations and defi-
ciencies.
Firstly, Many network and information security laboratories
are reconstructed from the original network engineering labs,
which are lacking special security experimental equipments and
unable to complete professional experimental courses.
Secondly, at the beginning of the construction, only the sim-
ple experimental teaching process is considered, which leads to
the students’ little knowledge about the experiments. Besides
that, because of the lack of communication between the stu-
dents and the teachers, students learn passively, and the inspira-
tion of innovative consciousness that the teachers give to the
students is not enough. This will affect the students’ ability to
solve problems independently
Thirdly, the laboratory of Information security serves for a
single object without its own hardware advantages, which can’t
provide the requirements of local extended service and scien-
tific research requirement of the teachers.
Therefore, building a network and information security labo-
ratory combined with scientific research, teaching and service
will play an important role in the development of information
security technology as well as the training. It also provides
security evaluation, authentication and extension services for
local governments, institutions and enterprises.
Function Requirements for Information Security
Laboratory
On the one hand, we should pay attention to the related fore-
front research, intensive technologies and hot application in
information security field; on the other hand, it is needed to
build information security engineering practice environment to
cultivate comprehensive information security talents. Engineer-
ing application of information security is strong; therefore, we
should focus on authenticity of the experimental environment
and design comprehensive experiments to cultivate security
sense of the students (Aboutab, 2006). The following three
aspects of services are supported by the lab:
Firstly, it is research-oriented. It will provide good experi-
mental environment for scientific research and validation in-
cluding the basic theory, security frame, security mechanisms,
security technologies and other aspects.
Secondly, it is teaching-oriented. The lab will help the stu-
dents to improve their practice activity. In the information se-
curity laboratory, the students could carry out security experi-
ments in different levels and different directions.
Thirdly, it will support extension services. It will support so-
cialization training services for information security majors.
The two talents cultivation modes including “school education”
and “vocational training” need to be combined; the two modes
of “teaching in class” and the “online learning” also need to be
combined. It also provides multi-level training and certification
mechanisms of universal and specific complementary levels; it
also supports safety training services and products promotion.
Through the combination with well-known security vendors, it
provides training and certification of security products to meet
the needs of enterprise users; it also supports testing function
for network devices and security devices; it supports testing and
validation services for large network, and also it provides secu-
rity test and eva luation on the c ommercia l n e tw o rk.
Requirements for Network and Information
Security Laboratory
The construction of information security lab involves many
new technologies. As a fully functional network security lab, it
is able to simulate real environment as much as possible. At the
same time, we should deduce the cost of devices to achieve
high-yield with low-input. The lab will provide the students
with the same work environment as they work after graduation.
Based on the above considerations, the following principles
(O’Leary, 2006) should be confirmed:
1) Practical, easy to use and apply.
The security devices used in lab should have strong practica-
bility. We should adopt mainstream security devices and soft-
ware in the market, combine with the mainstream command
line configuration so that the students can experience and learn
a variety of network attack and defense techniques in real work
environment, which guarantees that what skills they have
learned can be fully applied in the work after they graduated.
Besides that, the convenience of teaching in the lab needs to be
taken into full consideration. It should be easy to use for the
teachers and students. The opening management system is
adopted for unified management. The system provides different
users including students, teachers and administrators access to
the lab by the network, which makes it possible that the users
can do experiments remotely. This will improve the utilization
rate of the lab, and the teachers and students can carry out ex-
periments and communicate in their spare time.
2) The technology should be advanced, function of the lab
should be comprehensive and devices should be compatible and
scalable.
Firstly, with the rapid development of the network security
technologies, the equipments and management systems in the
lab should be updated timely to adapt to the development of the
technologies. So, the lab should have good compatibility and
scalability at the beginning of lab construction. When the new
technologies appear, the hardware and software can be up-
graded, and the new equipments can be used in the laboratory.
The lab will provide devices including firewall, IDS/IPS, VPN,
anti-virus, anti-spyware, high security, hacking, encryption and
decryption, and other security devices and software etc, which
will provide a more comprehensive network security learning
platform for us.
Secondly, the network information security technologies are
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L. ZHU ET AL.
Copyright © 2012 SciRe s . 408
training and teaching, which includes platform, LED screen
announcement area, blackboard, projection area and hexagonal
tables. The training room will meet the need of eight-group
students to do experiments at the same time. Each group has six
computers. The working area is provided for laboratory admi-
nistrator and teachers. There are four sets of work tables and
chairs for teachers. The equipment area is used for placing ex-
perimental equipments, including network cabinets, server
cabinets and UPS equipment area etc. The network cabinet area
is designed for placing various security equipments and net-
work switching equipments; the server cabinet area is designed
for placing required servers; the UPS equipment area is used for
placing UPS host and UPS battery.
constructed based on the network protocol. Current IPv4 net-
work is transiting to the next generation network which sup-
ports IPv6 protocol. In addition to providing nearly infinite
IPv6 addresses, security of IPv6 is also greatly improved.
Therefore, we should fully take the compatibility of the IPv6
protocol into account in the future. The laboratory design will
consider future employment demand for the students. So the
availability and extension should be taken into account.
3) It will provide services for objects with different levels.
The related courses of information security are covered with
wide range of content. The students of different levels and dif-
ferent majors need to master different theory and technologies.
This requires that the lab not only provides experimental teach-
ing environment for the teachers and students in our college but
also provides network security vocational training for the whole
community. Besides that, the lab will also provide security
evaluation, authentication and extension services for local gov-
ernments, institutions and enterprises (Yang, Yue, & Liaw,
2004).
The functions provided by the lab include training, teaching,
security evaluation authentication and extension services for the
local governments, institutions and enterprises.
Training & Teaching Platform
The topology of the information security lab is described in
Figure 2.
A Construction Scheme for Information Security
Laboratory Each terminal group connects to the central switch by
anti-virus system, intrusion defense system and firewall, and
eventually connects to the machine Cabinet Server. Each group
corresponds to a cabinet server, which uses virtual machine to
simulate various servers (such as: patch Server, WEB server
and virus server) that act as target area. The work area of
teacher can use a projector, security audit system and log audit
system to display students’ behavior of attack target area. Each
Function S tructure
The function structure of the lab is shown as Figure 1.
The information security lab is divided into three regions:
training room, work area and the equipment area. Each area is
separated by toughened glass. The training room is used for
Figure 1.
Structure of the lab.

L. ZHU ET AL.
Figure 2.
Topology of the information security lab.
of the two groups students share an intrusion prevention sys-
tem. The security devices are put in six cabinets as Figure 3.
Experimental Modules of Training & Teaching
The content division of information security experiments is
shown in Table 1.
Security Evaluation, Authentication and
Extension Services
The center of information security evaluation as is shown in
Figure 4 has owned advanced information security vulnerabi-
lity analysis resources, and evaluation equipments; the func-
tions provided by the center include: basic research on vulner-
ability, product security vulnerability detection, system hidden
analysis and testing equipments; in accordance with national
laws and regulations, it can provide technical support to coun-
tries in information security area. It also provides the commu-
nity with public services, information technology products and
security vulnerabilities analysis of the systems and communica-
tions. The information security center is responsible for infor-
mation network of the party, security risk evaluations of im-
portant information system; developing information technology
products, security test and evaluation of systems and engineer-
ing construction; theoretical study on information security test-
ing and evaluation, technology development, standards deve-
lopment and so on.
It also provides product testing, evaluation and certification
services for computer information system of the party and gov-
ernment organs in Wenzhou and Zhejiang areas. It accepts
delegates of government departments and industry, and pro-
vides testing services of products, engineering and services.
The security evaluation services include security evaluation
testing, security system counseling, security system building,
security program reorganization, host evaluation, business sys-
tems testing, network architecture evaluation, data security
evaluation, security consolidation, emergency response and
security patrol. During the devlopment of technical system e
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L. ZHU ET AL.
Figure 3.
Cabinets of security devices.
Table 1.
Experiment modules.
The experiment modules Experiment projects
Security ac cess control tec hnology Deployment experi ment, routi ng experiment, NAT experiments, firewa l l and IDS e x periment, logging syst em
experiment
Security technology (VPN) VPN deploy ment, IPSEC VPN, SSL VPN, Ga t e way to gate way tunnel c o nfigurat io n, the cli ent to the gateway tunnel
experiment
Detection a nd defense te chnologies Trojan detection and defense, ove r flow detection and defense experime nt al, denial of service and defense detection, sy stem vulnerabilities category detect ion and defense, worms detection and defense, HTTP detection
and defense
Virus protection technology Feature code testing, calibration and dete ction of the virus behav i or , virus a nd malware virus
Vulnerability analysis tec hnology CGI vulnerab ility ana l ysis, the buffer overflow analysis, denial of ser vice analysis , b ackdoor v u lnerabi lity analysi s ,
and protocol vulnerability analysis
Security audit technology Behavior audit analysis, log analysis, d atabase audit analysis, equipment and s ystem audit a nalysis
Terminal security technology Software patches and system distributi ng technology, terminal behavior management technology, illegal inline management technology, il legal connection management, experimental re mote management and ter minal
security access
Attack and d efense technology Scanning technology, sniffer and Anti-sniffer technology, WEB attack and defense technology, the buffer overflow
attack and protection, network spoofing attack and defense, DDOS attack and defense and password cracking
Copyright © 2012 SciRe s . 410

L. ZHU ET AL.
construction, the network security, host security, application
security, and data security need to be considered. The techno-
logy tools include terminal security management system, net-
work anti-virus software, vulnerability scanning system, secu-
rity audit system, access control system, firewall, antivirus
gateway, intrusion prevention systems, and VPN systems. The
security manageme nt sy ste m includes sa fety ma nage ment rul es,
security management institute, personnel security management,
system construction management and operation and mainte-
nance management etc.
The information security evaluation service modules are
shown as Table 2.
Conclusion
Information security education is a kind of engineering culture
education. In this paper, the function and practice requirements
of an information security lab are analyzed. The scheme of an
information security laboratory is proposed. The lab provides
not only services for teaching and training, but also security
evaluation, authentication and extension services for local gov-
ernments, institutions and enterprises. Our teaching and training
practice shows that the scheme of such information security
laboratory proposed in this paper is effective and reaso n a ble．
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by a grant from Zhejiang province
college lab research project: Research on construction trinity of
network and information security lab (Grant NO. Y201236) and
teaching reform project of Wenzhou University in 2012: Con-
struction on innovation practice teaching system of Network
Figure 4.
Topology of information secur ity evaluation center.
Table 2.
Modules of information security evaluation service.
Project name Service content Service object
Device performance and attack-defense
detection eva luation Device performance and attack-defense detection technology experiments Ent erprise, security product manufacturer
Security evaluation project Security evaluation and evaluation, classified protection
evaluation service Government, Enterprise, financial and energy enterprises
Company qualification certification Company se curity service engineering aptitude i ntelligence and
company eme rgency response aptitude intelligence The enterprise s engaged in information security
Personnel q ualificati on certification CIW, CISP and CISSP Government and perso nnel staff of information construction in enterprises
and institutions
Security tra in ing cert if i cation CIW, CISP and CISSP Government and personnel staf f o f information construction in enterprises
and institutions
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L. ZHU ET AL.
and information security (Grant NO. 12JG68B).
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