Cybersecurity Techniques and Operations
This course introduces tools and techniques used to secure and analyze large computer networks and systems. Students will systematically learn C programming in the first part of the course, which forms a foundation for many cybersecurity operations, such as malware analysis, understanding network protocol stack, etc. In the second part, students will explore and map networks using a variety of diagnostic software tools, learn advanced packet analysis, configure firewalls, write intrusion detection rules, perform forensic investigation, and practice techniques for penetration testing. The objectives are:
- Understand the concepts and major constructs of the C programming language,
- Master the programming skills of the C programming language,
- Be able to analyze the C source code to infer the functionality of a given code segment, C function, C program etc,
- Grasp the needed techniques and skills to write a C program in cybersecurity operations such as a network protocol stack,
- Monitor and analyze network traffic. Identify and trace the traffic when intrusion is detected in the network,
- Identify and evaluate the vulnerabilities in the network and implement effective countermeasures to protect the network,
- Master the technologies to exploit the vulnerabilities in a remote system,
- Analyze the vulnerabilities in wireless communication network,
- Manage data and personal information in a secure manner.
Course Material
There are both programming assignments for C programming and hands-on labs for cybersecurity and operations. Please include some of the materials (listed below) that you produced within the course, explaining what you did and how these projects helped you engage with the outcomes listed above.
The programming assignments are as follows:
- Write a function htoi(s), which concerts a string of hexadecimal digits into its equivalent integer value.
- Write a function any(s1, s2) that returns the first location in the string s1 where any character from the string s2 occurs, or -1 if s1 contains no characters from s2.
- Using pointer, write a function strcat(s, t) that copies string t to the end of string s
- Write a program expr, which evaluates a reverse Polish expression from the command line. For example expr 2 3 4 + * evaluates 2* (3 + 4).
- Write a program to compare two files, printing the first line where they differ.
The hands-on labs are as follows:
- Traffic tracing through Wireshark and TCPdump
- Firewall configuration with pfSense
- Penetration test on Windows
- Password cracking
- Information hidin
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