This course aims to provide a hands-on perspective of common cybersecurity attacks, explain their mechanisms so that students can learn how to mitigate their impacts, discuss why these attacks pose constant threats to netizens, and introduce tools, techniques, and processes used to put us in a better position in the battle against cyber crimes.
Computer crime is an area of study that is rapidly growing in today’s socio-technical environment. Both profit and non-profit organizations have increasingly emphasized the importance and visibility of cybersecurity. With the easy access and use of malicious computing tools, people can commit crimes with and against computers. There is a growing need for a future IT workforce to be equipped with the skills to investigate and respond to these threats. Hence, this course will introduce the topics of cybersecurity attacks and defense. Students will be exposed to different aspects of malicious software, system intrusions, and ways in which to detect and protect digital assets.
The course content is dedicated to explain and showcase popular cybersecurity practices and concepts. Real world examples and hands-on labs will assist the students in learning about the malicious tools and techniques commonly used by hackers to exploit a victim system. Having a good understanding of these tools and techniques allows students to design and develop coping strategies as well as actionable plans to safeguard the computer information systems they are defending.
There are three modules in this course:
- Lesson 1: Introduction to Cybersecurity Concepts and Practices
- Lesson 2: Cybersecurity Threats & Attacks
- Lesson 3: Managing Cybersecurity Defense
Learning Objectives
- Describe how principles of cybersecurity management affect real-world practices
- Explain how malicious cyber attacks impact today’s organizations
- Explain how common cyber attacks work
- Identify the explicit and implicit characteristics of cyber threats and attacks
- Identify tools, techniques, and processes used to defend against cyber attacks
- Understand the values of virtual technologies in cyber-attack analysis
- Apply attacker’s thinking to conduct an environmental scan of the target system
- Understand how to defend and respond to attacks at both host and perimeter levels
Course materials
Some readings can be found in:
- Principles of Computer Security, Fourth Edition (Official Comptia Guide) 4th Edition by WM. Arthur Conklin, Greg White, Chuck Cothren, Roger L. Davis, Dwayne Williams ISBN-10: 0071835970 McGraw-Hill Education.
Homework Assignments and Labs
Module 1 covers foundational concepts of computers, networks, and principles related to cybersecurity. Modules 2 and 3 discuss in-depth cyber attacks, their forms, applications, and remedies. These two modules include eight hands-on lab exercises to 1) engage students with real-world practices that, directly and indirectly, lead to data leak and system intrusion; 2) obtain experience in discovering threats and perform accordingly to mitigate their impacts. These labs are labeled with their corresponding module/lesson IDs as follows:
- Lab 2B: DoS Attack with Metasploit Framework
- Lab 2C: SET Malicious Template
- Lab 2C: Keylogger
- Lab 2D: Malware Reverse HTTP Shell
- Lab 3A: OS Hardening
- Lab 3A: Network Scanning
- Lab 3C: Cryptography Using PGP
- Lab 3C: Steganography
Exams
There are three exams in this course. Each exam contains True/False, Multiple Choice, Fill in the blank, and Discussion/Short Answer questions. The instructor has the freedom to adapt the combination of these questions in order to fit their teaching needs. In general, each exam lasts 50-60 minutes.
Grading
The following distribution of grades are recommended:
- 20% Exam 1
- 20% Exam 2
- 20% Exam 3
- 40% 8 Labs (5% each)
NICE CYBERSECURITY WORKFORCE FRAMEWORK KSAS ADDRESSED (43)
NSA/DHS CENTER OF EXCELLENCE (CAE) KUS ADDRESSED (12)
Most courseware content maps to NIST NICE Cybersecurity Workforce Framework (NCWF) Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs) and/or NSA/DHS CAE Knowledge Units (KUs). For more information on KSAs and KUs, please visit:
KSAs: http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.800-181.pdf
KUs: http://www.iad.gov/NIETP/documents/Requirements/CAE-CD_2019_Knowledge_Units.pdf
About Instructor
Course Includes
- 3 Lessons
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