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Case Studies

Educational case studies developed through Army Cyber Institute workshops and research initiatives.

Case studies place students and professionals in realistic cyber, policy, legal, and operational dilemmas. Designed for classroom instruction, professional military education, and workforce development, these materials encourage critical thinking, discussion, and decision-making across a broad range of cybersecurity challenges. Topics include ransomware, cyber espionage, digital forensics, artificial intelligence, software supply chain risk, critical infrastructure protection, and emerging technologies.
Project Acknowledgement: This project was developed in cooperation with the Army Cyber Institute under award W911NF2520019.

Learn more about the original Case Study Project →

Featured Case Studies

RANSOMWARE
Wizard Spider: Lethally Poisonous Ransomware
Joshua Sipper
Examines a ransomware attack against a healthcare system and explores the cascading operational, legal, and ethical consequences of medical data being held hostage by cyber criminals.
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CYBER ESPIONAGE
Hacking the Vaccine
Chad Dacus
Explores allegations of state-sponsored cyber espionage targeting vaccine research, intellectual property, and pandemic response organizations during the COVID-19 crisis.
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DIGITAL FORENSICS
Digital Forensics Under Pressure: Technical and Legal Conflicts in Cyber Forensics
Hyungbae Park
Challenges students to balance evidentiary preservation, legal considerations, and technical constraints while conducting a high-pressure digital investigation.
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EMERGING TECHNOLOGY
Starfruit Lab: A Cybersecurity Dilemma Case Study
Jason Brown
Explores cybersecurity policy, state-sponsored hacking, genetic manipulation, human rights, and geopolitical competition through a decision-forcing case study.
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Driving Artificial Intelligence
Jim Chen
Examines the legal, ethical, policy, operational, and technical dilemmas faced by artificial intelligence systems when no ideal decision exists.
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CYBER OPERATIONS
Fly, Patch, and Don’t Lose Case Study
Kevin Parker
Explores the tension between maintaining operational readiness and applying cybersecurity patches in a forward theater environment with strategic consequences.
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DIGITAL FORENSICS
The 72-Hour Ghost: AI vs. the Ticking Clock
Khushi Gupta
Examines whether investigators should trust a proprietary AI-powered forensic tool when lives are at stake and evidence must withstand legal scrutiny.
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SOFTWARE SUPPLY CHAIN
CrowdStrike Cyber-Case: Update to Global Outage
Nicusor Dumitru
Examines the 2024 CrowdStrike outage and explores how organizations balance the need for timely updates with the risks of catastrophic system failures.
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