Teaching Tip: Decryption and Reverse Engineering - An Applied Tutorial for a Security Programming Course

Authors

Gunjan Batra, Kennesaw State UniversityFollow
Humayun Zafar, Kennesaw State UniversityFollow
Pamila Dembla, Kennesaw State UniversityFollow

Abstract

For professionals in the cyber security industry, knowledge of programming is a highly valuable skill. Therefore, it is crucial to teach programming courses to cybersecurity students in a way that aligns with industry needs. This paper presents a tutorial on encryption for a security programming course for undergraduate students specializing in cybersecurity. The challenge requires students to reverse engineer an encryption algorithm (using Python) and decrypt a text using the acquired knowledge. The tutorial also discusses the importance of programming skills for security students and why Python is an excellent choice for this purpose. The tutorial was conducted at a business school, receiving positive feedback from students and sparking increased interest in programming applications within cybersecurity.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.62273/STWE8998

Recommended Citation

Batra, Gunjan; Zafar, Humayun; and Dembla, Pamila (2025) "Teaching Tip: Decryption and Reverse Engineering - An Applied Tutorial for a Security Programming Course," Journal of Information Systems Education: Vol. 36 : Iss. 2 , 111-129.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.62273/STWE8998
Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/jise/vol36/iss2/3