Unlocking Information Security I: From Cryptography to Buffer Overflows (edX)

In this course, which is the first part of the Unlocking Information Security program, you will learn the basic terminology and concepts in the field of information security. You will explore different types of vulnerabilities through famous examples of design flaws, implementation bugs and social engineering.

You will then move on to discover the art of cryptography, from ancient times to the modern era, and learn about famous ciphers, how they can be cracked, and what can be done to thwart such attacks. Next, you will learn about an important aspect of cryptography that involves no secrets at all: hash functions. You will understand what they are, how they can be used, and how they can be attacked.

You will then combine everything you've learned and take a critical view of different authentication schemes: passwords, challenge-response systems and biometrics. Finally, you will learn about the most critical vulnerability of all times - Buffer Overflow.

This course is part of the Unlocking Information Security Professional Certificate.

What you'll learn

- Information Security basic terminology, vulnerabilities, exploits, and an in-depth look at a real case-study (namely, Meltdown).

- An overview of cryptography with an emphasis on symmetric ciphers.

- A high-level examination of hash functions and an overview of common hash algorithms.

- A critical look at different authentication schemes, including passwords, challenge-response, and biometrics.

- An overview of the most critical vulnerability of all times - buffer overflow, including common variants like Variable and Stack Overflow and simple yet effective mitigation techniques like canaries and DEP

Prerequisites:

The course includes optional programming exercises that require familiarity with the Python programming language. While the course can be completed with great benefit without solving them, we highly recommend you give them a try.

The course also assumes some mathematical maturity, including algebra, basic combinatorics, and probability.