Abstract
Teaching cyber security techniques can be challenging due to the complexity associated with building secure systems. The major issue is these systems could easily be broken if proper protection techniques are not employed. This requires students to understand the offensive approaches that can be used to breach security in order to better understand how to properly defend against cyber attacks. We present a novel approach to teaching cyber security in a graduate course using an innovative assessment task that engages students in both software obfuscation and reverse engineering of obfuscated code. Students involved in the activities gain an appreciation of the challenges in defending against attacks. Our results demonstrate a positive change in the students' perception during the learning process.