DU Cyber Club - Ethical Hacking Lab

Erich Harbowy has been working on setting up an ethical hacking lab at DU

Nathan S. Evans
Last updated on Nov 13, 2025 Cyber security, ethical hacking

Cyber security graduate student Erich Harbowy has been working to create an ethical hacking lab that students can test out their hacking skills on. A cyber range, or penetration testing lab is a setup (typically isolated from other networks) which contain vulnerable software and operating systems. By joining the lab network, testers can test their mettle on some open sourced hacking virtual machines.

This lab setup is a small proof of concept create by Erich to get some experience with such a lab, but he plans to open it up to students and the cyber security club twice a week.

Check out this video for details:

Cybersecurity club university of denver ethical hacking
Nathan S. Evans
Nathan S. Evans
Teaching Associate Professor, Academic Director for Cyber Security, University of Denver

Research includes networking, network security, software security and systems.

Interested in a formal cybersecurity or computer science degree?

The University of Denver is proud to offer multiple programs in cybersecurity, whether you want to be a manager or a frontline cyber warrior! Check out our program offerings at the DU Cybersecurity Page. We also have a cybersecurity concentration you can get on your way to a Computer Science degree! You can also email us if you want to learn more!

The programs in the Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science are strongly technically grounded, and provide a CS/Cyber education for the future of cybersecurity.

Accreditation

The University of Denver is recognized as an NSA (National Security Agency) CAE-CD (Center of Academic Excellence – Cyber Defense). The NSA evaluates and accredits institutions providing cybersecurity degrees and curricula — a rigorous and prestigious validation performed by security experts and members of other educational institutions. It means the coursework of the Cybersecurity MS program at DU aligns with criteria mapped to the US government's NICE framework knowledge units.

More information can be found at the official NSA academic site here.