ShadowNet Cyber Range

Practice real cybersecurity skills inside a controlled virtual environment and Physical system built for hands-on learning, attack simulation, and defensive security training.

A Complete Virtual and Physical Cybersecurity Lab

ShadowNet is CDTI’s hands-on cyber range. Students build and operate a segmented virtual network containing firewalls, Windows systems, Linux servers, attacker machines, and security-monitoring tools.

Students do more than watch demonstrations. They configure virtual and physical systems, analyze traffic, identify vulnerabilities, investigate alerts, and defend the environment from simulated attacks.

Build the Network

Students build and configure a real physical cybersecurity lab environment using actual hardware, not just virtual machines.

Hands-on equipment includes:

  • Physical pfSense firewall/router hardware

  • Managed network switches

  • KVM switches for controlling multiple systems

  • Physical Windows PCs

  • Physical Ubuntu/Linux systems

  • Physical Kali Linux attack systems

  • A dedicated Linux monitoring and SIEM server

  • VLAN10 user network

  • VLAN20 restricted/server network

  • Ethernet cabling and real network connections between systems

Students learn how to physically connect, configure, segment, troubleshoot, and secure the network before moving into more advanced cyber defense activities.

Attack. Detect. Defend.

After students build and configure the physical CDTI network, they use that same environment to practice real cybersecurity operations in a controlled lab.

Students then move into hands-on activities such as:

  • Network discovery and traffic analysis

  • Vulnerability assessments

  • Firewall-rule configuration

  • Ethical hacking techniques

  • Log and alert investigation

  • Incident response

  • Network segmentation

  • Security-control testing

The goal is to take the network they built, test it, attack it, monitor it, and defend it.

Admissions Requirements