CheatGuard: A cybersecurity inspired anti-cheating platform for higher education

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Education and Information Technologies

Publication Date

8-1-2025

Abstract

Academic integrity aims to ensure that students’ achievements are the result of their own efforts and knowledge. However, academic dishonesty continues to evolve, becoming increasingly difficult to detect and mitigate—especially with the rise of sophisticated, AI-driven tools. The lack of a universal knowledge base and standardized guidelines for addressing emerging forms of misconduct further complicates enforcement, leaving educators with limited resources to effectively identify and respond to violations. This research addresses these challenges by proposing CheatGuard, a centralized online anti-cheating platform with incident reporting capabilities. Inspired by MITRE’s ATT&CK framework used in cybersecurity, CheatGuard catalogs a wide range of cheating techniques reported by institutions—from plagiarism to unauthorized collaboration during exams. For each assessment category, it also provides corresponding detection and prevention methods. CheatGuard’s knowledge base is continuously updated using an AI agent that gathers data from online sources. Tactics, techniques, and procedures related to academic dishonesty are structured similarly to those in MITRE ATT&CK, helping institutions systematically select appropriate countermeasures. This paper presents the conceptual architecture of CheatGuard, explains how it can be accessed and used by educators, and explores its potential to combat academic misconduct in the age of Artificial Intelligence.

ISSN

1360-2357

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Disciplines

Computer Sciences | Education

Keywords

Academic integrity, Anti-cheating system, Higher Education Institutions, Knowledge base, MITRE

Scopus ID

105012389294

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

no

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