SEC301: Introduction to Cyber Security

Overview

Every good security practitioner and every good security program begins with the same mantra: learn the fundamentals. SEC301 starts by instilling familiarity with core security terms and principles. By the time you leave the classroom after the first day, you fully understand the Principle of Least Privilege and why it drives all security decisions. You know the Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability (CIA) method of prioritizing your security program. You understand the fundamentals of risk management, security policy, and authentication/authorization/accountability (AAA).

Exercises

• Lab - Introducing the lab environment used throughout the course. We ensure that each student can access the lab environment. It is necessary to be able to disable any VPN software on your system to be able to access the environment in the classroom. We ensure that each student knows how to use the lab environment so that they are successful in completing labs throughout the course. We also introduce the quizzes that students can take on the SEC301.com website. That site also has videos of the course author performing each lab with full explanations of the steps, why you do them, what any output on the screen might mean, and so on.
• NOTE: We do not give time in class for watching the videos or completing the quizzes. These are extra, outside of class activities. If you believe you may like to view the videos during class time (perhaps during a break), please bring ear-buds or headphones so that you do not distract other students with the audio.
• Lab - Building Better Passwords: We'll use a tool that shows how long it takes to compromise various passwords via a brute force attack. The emphasis of the lab is how to help yourself, your users, your family, and your friends to choose better, stronger, and easier to use passwords.

Overview

If you are going to secure a computer or a network, you must have at least a basic knowledge of how they work. Every attack uses something that exists for perfectly valid reasons and misuses it in invalid malicious ways. To work in cyber security, you have to understand the valid functions to understand the potential for invalid misuse.

The day begins with a discussion of how computers work. We cover the numbering system of decimal, binary, and hexadecimal - vital to understanding computers and networks. We also cover ASCII (the American Standard Code for Information Interchange). We also discuss what an operating system is. We talk about the terms kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, and terabyte and what those terms mean. We cover the difference between the hard drive and Random Access Memory (RAM). In short, how a computer works.

From there, we move to a discussion of how information moves from point A to point B across a network without using any technical terminology of any kind. This discussion includes both Internet and Local Area Network (LAN) examples. As we move on through the day, we slowly add the technical aspects of those explanations, including the terms and acronyms of networking. We discuss the origins of the Internet and why that origin matters to modern-day cyber security. We explain what a protocol is, and what both the OSI and TCP/IP stacks are and why they matter. You learn about standard network hardware such as a network interface card, a switch, and a router. We progress to topics such as IP addresses, network masks, default gateways, and routing. We explain, compare, and contrast the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and why you might want to use one over the other. Eventually, we get to network protocols such as the Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP), Domain Name System (DNS), and Network Address Translation (NAT).

While the above description sounds exceptionally technical, rest assured that we present the material in the most non-technical way possible. We cover each topic at a very high-level without getting into the nitty-gritty details.

Exercises

• Lab - Computer Number Conversions: Apply the knowledge you learned to convert decimal numbers to binary, binary numbers to hexadecimal, binary and hexadecimal numbers to decimal values, and so on.
• Lab - Networking: Use a variety of built-in operating system commands to see your IP address, network mask, default gateway, ARP cache, DNS Cache, and see Network Address Translation in action. You will also perform simple network packet analysis with the Wireshark tool.

Overview

Cryptography is one of the most complex issues faced by security practitioners. It is not a topic you can explain in passing; we spend a full day on it. You do not need a calculator for this day since we do not delve into the math behind crypto. We introduce you to cryptographic terms. We explain what steganography is. We then look at historical examples of cryptography. We do this because even the most advanced cryptographic systems today utilize methods of encrypting data that were used hundreds of years B.C. So we explain the historical examples that are very easy to understand to make it easier to understand modern cryptographic methods and principles.

We cover the "work factor" - the length of time necessary to break cryptography and why understanding this concept is so important. We cover some of the potential attacks against crypto and which ones are viable against modern cryptography and which attacks are nonviable. We cover hashing, symmetric & asymmetric cryptography and how each works. We then show real-world examples of how those cryptographic systems work. We cover the secure key exchange mechanism called Diffie-Hellman. We even briefly cover digital certificates and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).

Once we have thoroughly explained how cryptography works, we end the day with a discussion of data encrypting protocols. Things that use cryptography to secure data on our networks and across the Internet. Here we cover email encryption, secure remote administration, secure file transfer, and three examples of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).

Again, we do not spend our time on the mathematics behind cryptography, but instead, we are highly process focused. We explain the steps required to make crypto work, the order those steps must occur in, and which key you must use for each step.

Exercises

• Lab - Crypto by Hand: Apply the knowledge and skills you've learned to encrypt information using mono and poly alphabetic ciphers and gain a better understanding of triple encryption (as used by Triple DES).
• Lab - Visual Crypto: Observe the encryption process that occurs by turning plaintext (what you can read) into ciphertext (what you cannot read) in real-time. Increase your understanding of what "randomness in ciphertext" truly means. See ciphertext turned back into plaintext. Find out what happens if you edit cyphertext and try to decrypt it. Learn what happens if you attempt to decrypt data with the wrong key. The lab provides visual proof of many definitive statements made by the instructor throughout the lecture.

Overview

Our fourth day in the classroom begins our exploration of cyber security technologies. We begin with wireless network security (WiFi and Bluetooth), and mobile device security (i.e., mobile phones & tablets). We compare and contrast the security models of Apple's iPhone and Google's Android phones. We also discuss the almost total lack of security in the Internet of Things (IoT). We follow that with a look at some frequent attacks, including open-source intelligence gathering, social engineering, drive-by download attacks, watering hole attacks, buffer overflow attacks, Denial of Service (DoS), and other frequent attacks. We then move into a discussion of malware. What is a virus versus a worm or a trojan horse? What is ransomware, and what is cryptojacking. We then cover both anti-malware and host firewalls that try to counter these problems.

Exercises

• Lab - Configure a Wireless Access Point (A.K.A. Wireless Router). Students go through the steps of configuring a wireless access point from its default insecure state to a locked-down, far more secure state. Industry best practices dictate the final settings. Students can take these lab instructions home or to work and apply them with some necessary modifications given their device manufacturer.
• Lab - Run the anti-malware scanner "Malwarebytes" on a virtual machine running within the lab environment. Discover active malware and remove it from the system. Also, discover Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs) that are, in reality, authorized software. Whitelist the PUPs, so they stop showing up in the scan results.

Overview

The final day of our SEC301 journey continues the discussion of Cyber Security Technologies. The day begins by looking at several security technologies, including compartmentalization, firewalls, Intrusion Detection Systems and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS), sniffers, content filters, sinkholes, ethical hacking, active defense, threat hunting and many more. We then take a solid look at Browser and Web security, and the difficulties of securing the web environment. For example, students understand why and how their browser connects to anywhere from 5 to 100+ different Internet locations each time they load a single web page. We end the day with a look at system security to include hardening operating systems, patching, virtual machines, cloud computing, and backup. We include solid real-world examples of how to implement these.

Exercises

• Lab - Firewall Configuration with Firewall Builder. Students utilize an open-source tool called "Firewall Builder" to create a simple yet fully functional firewall configuration. The lab not only explains how to build each of the rules but, more importantly, explains WHY you build each rule. The lab teaches not only the basics of configuring a firewall but also how to read and audit an existing firewall ruleset.