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

This lab, as well as all the labs in this course, was done on a virtual machine. This lab went over hacking techniques that may be used by hackers, which is very important to understanding how to defend against those same attacks.

This lab is all focused on how password cracking is used by hackers to obtain the passwords of victims through cracking them. As such, we set up some accounts and cracked them in order to find the passwords, teaching us the importance of complex passwords and also how crackers work in general.