Introduction to Cybersecurity
Understand what cybersecurity protects, recognise common threats, and put the essential defences in place on your own accounts, devices and home network.
Beginner · Cybersecurity · about 9 hours · 4 modules · certificate on completion
Taught by Cataliná Ionescù, Rodrigoò Silvà, AI Learning Companions.
About this course
Cybersecurity can sound like a specialist's world, but most of what keeps people and small organisations safe is a handful of well-understood habits, done properly. This course explains the ideas security professionals use every day, confidentiality, integrity and availability, threats, vulnerabilities and risk, and then puts them to work on the things you own.
You'll learn to spot phishing and the tricks behind it, set up a password manager and multi-factor authentication on your most important accounts, keep your devices updated and encrypted, build a backup routine and prove it works by restoring a file and checking its hash, and audit your home network's router, Wi-Fi and firewall. Each module ends with a hands-on lab on your own devices that your instructor reviews, and the course ends with a security plan for a small office. Along the way you'll see the roles that make up the security field, and how to start building experience safely and legally.
What you'll learn
- Explain confidentiality, integrity and availability, and use them to judge what's at risk
- Recognise common threats such as phishing, malware and ransomware, and the habits that defend against them
- Secure your accounts with a password manager, unique passwords and multi-factor authentication
- Keep devices updated, and run a backup routine you've proved by restoring a file
- Secure a home or small-office network, from the router's settings to the devices on it
- Describe the main roles in cybersecurity and plan your next steps into the field
Skills you'll gain
The CIA triad, Risk basics, Phishing awareness, Password managers, Multi-factor authentication, Patching and updates, Backup and recovery, Home network security, Security careers
Tools
Password manager, Authenticator app or passkeys, Built-in backup tools, Home router settings
Before you start
None. You need a computer (Windows, macOS or Linux) and a smartphone that are your own, your own email account, and access to your home router's settings. Every lab is done on your own devices and accounts.
Modules
What cybersecurity protects
The ideas everything else builds on: confidentiality, integrity and availability; threats, vulnerabilities and risk; and the most common attacks and how to defend against them.
- Confidentiality, integrity and availability (10 min)
- Threats, vulnerabilities and risk (10 min)
- Common threats and how to defend against them (12 min)
- Hands-on lab: Map what you need to protect
Strong authentication
Passwords that hold up, password managers that make them easy, and multi-factor authentication and passkeys, which stop a stolen password from being enough.
- Passwords that hold up (10 min)
- Password managers (10 min)
- Multi-factor authentication and passkeys (12 min)
- Hands-on lab: Lock down your most important accounts
Keep devices updated and data recoverable
Updates and patching, the built-in protections every device should have, and backups you've proved you can restore from.
- Updates and patching (10 min)
- Protect your devices (10 min)
- Backups you can restore (12 min)
- Hands-on lab: Set up and test a backup routine
Secure your network, and where to go next
How a home network works and where it's exposed, securing Wi-Fi and connected devices, security basics for a small office, and the roles and first steps of a career in security.
- How a home network works, and where it's exposed (10 min)
- Securing Wi-Fi and connected devices (12 min)
- Security basics for a small office (10 min)
- Careers in cybersecurity (10 min)
- Hands-on lab: Audit your home network
Project: Write a security plan for a small office
A six-person accounting practice has asked for a practical security plan. Each person has a laptop; there's a shared printer, a network storage box holding client files, cloud email and documents, a Wi-Fi router supplied by the internet provider, a smart TV in the waiting room and a card terminal at reception. Staff use their phones for email, a former employee left last month, and nobody is sure when the storage box was last backed up. Write a plan the practice's owner could follow, in plain language, using what you've learned: what to protect, the biggest risks, and the controls for accounts, devices, backups and the network, plus what to do when something goes wrong.
Part of
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