Practical Security: Simple Practices for Defending Your Systems

Course Overview

It seems like hardly a week goes by without a high-profile computer breach. Why do these happen? How can you prevent them? This course doesn’t have all the answers, but it does outline practices that make life harder for attackers and that will help tide you over until you get a full-t... See More

How You'll Learn

Hands-on coding environments

You don’t get better at swimming by watching others. Coding is no different. Practice as you learn with live code environments inside your browser.

Faster than videos

Videos are holding you back. The average video tutorial is spoken at 150 words per minute, while you can read at 250. That‘s why our courses are text-based.

No set-up required

Start learning immediately instead of fiddling with SDKs and IDEs. It‘s all on the cloud.

Progress you can show

Built in assessments let you test your skills. Completion certificates let you show them off.

Hands-on coding environments

You don’t get better at swimming by watching others. Coding is no different. Practice as you learn with live code environments inside your browser.

Faster than videos

Videos are holding you back. The average video tutorial is spoken at 150 words per minute, while you can read at 250. That‘s why our courses are text-based.

No set-up required

Start learning immediately instead of fiddling with SDKs and IDEs. It‘s all on the cloud.

Progress you can show

Built in assessments let you test your skills. Completion certificates let you show them off.

Course Contents

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1. Introduction

Who Is This Course For?

What’s in This Course?

2. Patching

Introduction

Upgrading Third-Party Libraries and Software

A Closer Look at Patching

Library Inventory

Dependency Management: Python

Dependency Management: JavaScript

Automating Vulnerability Detection

Network Inventory

Nmap

OpenVAS

Patching Windows

Finding Published Vulnerabilities

Testing Your Patches

If Patching Hurts, Do It More Often

3. Vulnerabilities

Introduction

Introduction to SQL

Challenge: Select The Journal

Solution Review: Select The Journal

More SQL Commands

Challenge: Write a Generalized Query

Solution Review: Write a Generalized Query

How SQL Injection Works

Extending the Defense Beyond Prepared Statements

Additional Defenses as a Mitigation Against Future Mistakes

Putting It All Together for a Robust Defense

Introduction to Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

HTML Encoding

Defenses against XSS

Introduction to Cross-Site Request Forgery (XSRF)

XSRF Prevention with SameSite

Misconfiguration

Default Passwords & Credentials

Jenkins & Public-Facing Servers

What’s Next?

4. Cryptography

Introduction

Don’t Roll Your Own Crypto

Some Key Principles

Security When the Enemy Knows the System

Don’t Use Low-Level Crypto Libraries

ECB Malleability

CBC Is Still Malleable

Evaluating Crypto Libraries Without Being a Crypto Expert

Password Storage

More Techniques for Password Storage

Storing Passwords When You’re the Client

Minimizing the Cost of Credential Loss

Keeping Passwords Hard to Predict

TLS Configuration

What’s Next?

5. Windows

Introduction

Login and Mimikatz

Password Policy

Active Directory: What Else Is It Good For?

BitLocker

What’s Next?

6. Phishing

Introduction

Types of Phishing Attacks

Social Defense

DNS-Based Defense SPF

DNS-Based Defense: DKIM

DNS-Based Defense: DMARC

Authentication-Based Defense

Wrapping up!