Cyber Security: From Beginner to Expert

Explore the OSI and TCP/IP protocol stacks, from application to physical layers, and learn how protocols like HTTP, TCP, IP, UDP, and TLS/SSL secure communications.

Understand how the application layer handles web pages and objects via HTTP, and how the transport layer ensures reliable TCP delivery or fast UDP.

Understand how the domain name system maps human readable names to IP addresses using a hierarchical DNS structure, UDP transmission, and globally distributed root, top level domain, and authoritative servers.

Explore the link layer, responsible for hop-to-hop delivery, and compare Mac addresses to IP addresses while seeing how transport, network, and link headers enable end-to-end routing.

Learn to use nmap to scan the 1000 common ports, identify open ports and their services, and perform stealth scans and os detection.

Set up lab and perform nmap scans to discover ports, fingerprint the operating system and kernel, and locate a secret service on a port in the 40,000 to 60,000 range.

Run the lab script to set up the environment, then use nmap to scan localhost's 1000 ports, revealing ports 22, 80, and 3006, and fingerprinting the os with -O.

Explore how NAT uses a single public IP to support thousands of internal systems, hides private addresses, and employs port address translation to differentiate connections.

Learn how firewalls defend networks as the first line of defense, using access control lists to block or allow traffic. Compare stateless and stateful designs with next-generation deep packet inspection.

Explore DNS attacks such as poisoning and spoofing, how DNSSEC uses public key cryptography to authenticate messages, and the threat of DNS reflection.

Explore social engineering and phishing, explaining how attackers exploit human psychology, employ prompts like urgency and impersonation, and how to detect and prevent these attacks through training, policies, and reporting.

Explore how web applications are architected from front end to database, and learn core security practices and the OWASP top ten vulnerabilities.

Demonstrate sql injection techniques in a lab with a lamp stack vulnerable web app, using the login page, database queries, and union-based data extraction on Kali Linux.

Explore cross-site scripting, including persistent and reflected variants, and learn how input sanitization, input validation, and secure coding practices mitigate these attacks.

learn vulnerability management as a continuous cycle of asset discovery, scanning, assessment, prioritization by business impact and exploitability, and mitigation through patching and disabling unused services.

Learn how spyware gathers data through browser hijackers, cookies, and keyloggers; see how adware injects ads; understand ransomware encryption and prevention with indicators of compromise and decryption resources.

Discover how anti malware detects and removes malware using on-demand and real-time scanning, signature and anomaly based detection, and remediation steps like isolation, patching, and backups.

Explore the cyber kill chain and how attackers progress from reconnaissance to objective. Learn passive and active reconnaissance, weaponization, delivery via phishing and USB drops, exploitation, backdoors, and command-and-control.

Trace the cyber kill chain in a real world Target incident by examining reconnaissance, weaponization, delivery, exploitation, installation, command and control, and exfiltration.

Discover snort, an open source intrusion detection and prevention system (IDPS) that inspects real-time network traffic, uses a rule-based engine, and logs and alerts for incident response.

Learn to configure snort in a Kali Linux VM and an nginx Docker container, and write alert rules for SSH port scans and ICMP ping traffic.

Explore packet and protocol analysis across the application, transport, network, and link layers, tracing how headers, ports, and addresses including DNS, TCP/UDP, and MAC addresses enable end-to-end communication.

Explore Wireshark, a free open source network packet analyzer used to detect threats, investigate incidents, and analyze traffic packet by packet; learn the UI and capture options.

Use wireshark to investigate a credentials breach by loading the credentials breach pcap ng, tracing access from Kali Linux VM to the nginx server, and confirming exfiltration via tcp stream.

Explore a realistic Acme corporate data breach with Wireshark to perform forensic investigation of network traffic, identify attack vectors, malware activity, and data exfiltration.

Compare discretionary access control (DAC) and mandatory access control (MAC), explaining owner-based versus centralized decision making. Describe how subjects and objects receive clearance levels and labels to govern access.

Define cyber security risk as the chance a threat exploits a vulnerability to cause harm. Learn how risk management prioritizes assets to focus protection.

Monitor risks with risk monitoring to test security controls, detect anomalies, and stay ahead of evolving threats through log analysis, vulnerability scanning, patch and configuration management, IDS/IPS, and endpoint security.

Apply risk management concepts to a case study by identifying five explicit IT risks, evaluating them with likelihood and impact scores, and completing a risk register and risk matrix.

Explore security controls across administrative or managerial, technical or logical, and physical categories with examples like biometric authentication and security cameras; learn preventive, detective, corrective, deterrent, compensating, and recovery types.

Explore how generative ai creates new content from massive data, mimics human learning, and transforms cybersecurity through risk analysis, threat modeling, and detection rule generation.