Cybersecurity Study

Notice

Look for warning signs and unusual behavior.

Decide

Choose the safest explanation and response.

Act

Report, block, lock, delete, or use a trusted path.

Identify

inventory assets, data, accounts

Protect

set safeguards before problems

Detect

notice possible incidents

Respond

take action during incident

Recover

restore normal operations

Common Warning Signs

Urgency, threats, surprise attachments, fake links, typos, or requests for passwords and private information.

Safe Habits

Pause before clicking. Check the sender and web address. Go to the real site yourself. Report suspicious messages.

Spam

unwanted mass message

Phishing

fake message for private info

Social engineering

manipulates a person

Security risk

A detail that seems harmless alone may become useful to an attacker when it is matched with other public information.

Before clicking

Hover over links, check the address, and use the real website when you need to sign in.

Before opening files

Unexpected attachments can contain harmful content. Executable files deserve extra caution.

PowerShell basics

Commands can list folders, change locations, show hidden items, and help you inspect the lab file system.

Ethical rule

Skills and tools from class must be used only with permission and only in the assigned lab or activity.

Confidentiality

Only authorized users and processes should be able to access or modify data

Integrity

Data should be maintained in a correct state and nobody should be able to improperly modify it, either accidentally or maliciously

Availability

Authorized users should be able to access data whenever they need to do so

IoT

Electronic devices connected to the Internet.

The CIA Triad

Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability.

Classify

Explain authorization and attacker motives.

Compare

Distinguish malware, attacks, and vulnerabilities.

Evaluate

Defend an ethical response using lesson evidence.

Unauthorized

access or testing beyond permission. Reporting a finding afterward does not change that.

Bug Bounty

a program may reward qualifying reports within its rules.

Script Kiddie

uses others' tools.

Insider

has access through a role

Syndicate

organized criminal group.

Nation-State

state-linked operations.

Financial Gain

Obtain Money

Industrial Espionage

Steal competitor information

Prevention

Find and report weaknesses with permission

Social Ideology

Promote social or political change

Whistleblowing

Expose wrongdoing as an insider

Malware

Software designed for harmful purposes

Attack Method

A way to interfere with a system or its users

Compromised Network

Devices an attacker controls

Vulnerability

A weakness an attacker can exploit

BotNet

a network of devices an attacker controls.

DDoS

traffic from many sources overwhelms a service.

Packet

a small unit of network data. Attack traffic can look like normal requests.

Ping Flood

Many ping requests overload a target.

Ping of Death

An oversized reassembled packet triggers a bug.

Smurf

A forged source address causes many replies to hit a victim.

Mail Bomb

A flood of messages overwhelms email resources.

Teardrop

Overlapping packet fragments exploit a reassembly bug.