Playing to win

At a glance

• A La Trobe University researcher has created a table-top “escape room” game to enhance learning, boost information retention and make lessons fun
• Inspired by the escape room entertainment phenomenon, players work collaboratively through a storyline, validating their puzzle answers using an innovative lockbox to solve a mystery or stage a great escape
• The game is scripted and can be targeted at any age group, subject or learning outcome, but inventor Associate Professor of Engineering Robert Ross has created a series of challenges specifically for cybersecurity training
• Engaging scenarios challenge players to apply theoretical learning to solve “real-life” problems in what becomes a valuable team-building exercise that reinforces essential learning and boosts defences against cybercrime.

Case study

Cybercrime is deadly serious. While phishing, fraud, ransomware attacks and data breaches are costing the global economy billions, organisations large and small pour resources into staff cybersecurity training to hold criminals at bay.

Now a new tool developed by a La Trobe University researcher is putting some unexpected fun into lessons that are critical to boosting online defences.

Associate Professor of Engineering Dr Robert Ross has harnessed his love of problem-solving and building, as well as his experience as a teacher, to create a series of engaging educational escape rooms for cybersecurity training.

Inspired by the global escape room entertainment phenomenon, Dr Ross invented a table-top game that challenges players to work through a storyline, validating puzzle answers and codes using an innovative lockbox to access more clues culminating in solving a mystery or staging a great escape.

With engaging story scripts and videos targeted to a specific audience, subject and learning outcomes, Dr Ross says the game is particularly well-suited to the challenge of creating meaningful cybersecurity training.

“Everyone needs to be cyber-aware, so they don’t get defrauded, and so their companies don’t get defrauded,” Dr Ross says.

Working almost two decades as an engineering teacher at La Trobe University has taught Dr Ross important lessons about the value of engagement in the classroom.

“If students are disengaged, you’re pushing a load uphill,” he says. “But if they want to learn that’s really helpful and great for information retention. I try to make the classroom a more interesting place, that connects the theoretical concepts to the real world, so it’s no longer abstract.”

The broad success of Dr Ross’s educational escape rooms – in schools, universities and community activities – led him to create dedicated cybersecurity workshops that can be delivered by La Trobe staff or the company’s own personnel. One, for example, focuses on a phishing scenario with players diving into emails and communications to hunt for clues to thwart the attack.

Dr Ross says that while many organisations rely on standard online tutorials as compliance training for staff, he believes that escape room workshops challenge players to come to a far deeper understanding.

“The online tutorial approach might work as a tick-the-box compliance – everyone’s ‘done’ their cyber training module. Or, have they just scrolled to the end of the training as quickly as possible, and answered the multiple-choice questions that were all pretty obvious? Have they really learnt something?”

While educational escape room workshops demand greater involvement than an online tutorial, he sees benefits including the opportunity for participants to create a shared understanding of a complex, slippery problem that they can wrestle with and remember.

“Companies spend big budgets trying to create team-building activities,” says Dr Ross. “Sometimes they're boring. Sometimes they’re fun like The Amazing Race, but there's actually no practical benefit other than bonding. Our escape rooms provide a fun team-building activity, but at the same time, the skills they need.

“We're talking with a number of big corporate partners looking for cyber training, but it's a lot easier to justify an expensive activity when it's imparting core knowledge; you're ticking two boxes at once – and it’s fun.”

Businesses are rightfully concerned about keeping up with cyber education across their teams – whether it is building technical capability in their cyber team, upskilling leadership to prepare and respond to the risk, or engaging staff to actively participate in protecting the organisation from cyber threats in their daily roles.

To find out more about educational escape rooms and cyber security microcredentials to boost your business' cybersecurity game, contact La Trobe Professional.

Contact Monica Nowell, Senior Manager, Business Development, La Trobe Professional.

M: 0491 877 760
E: m.nowell@latrobe.edu.au