Abstract: Success of IT security not only depends on the evolution of technologies, but also relies on the knowledge of IT-Personnel and the level of their IT-security education. In order to deliver IT students and professionals hands-on experience of security technologies and tools by electronic means, this paper proposes the concept of a virtual laboratory and discusses its application in practical IT security education. Providing security experience in traditional ways is difficult because it needs dedicated test-bed networks and a lot of administrative efforts, which makes on-site training expensive. The virtual laboratory is an online security laboratory which is built with virtual machines. Virtual machines are software applications which simulate real machines on a host. Equipped with rich security tools and network interfaces, those virtual machines can be assigned to users as laboratory platforms. For that virtual machines are under monitoring and administration, the laborator...