Cybersecurity Foundations

This level builds the technical and security foundation beginners need to understand protected environments and work with confidence, with no previous cybersecurity experience required.

Level Goals

• Understand core cybersecurity principles, ethics, and career paths.
• Build practical foundations in networking, Windows, and Linux.
• Recognize common threats and essential protection and cryptography concepts.

Training Modules

• TCP/IP, IP addressing, ports, DNS, HTTP/HTTPS, firewalls, and VPNs.
• Users, permissions, files, services, and logs.
• Authentication, access control, and least privilege.
• Phishing, social engineering, malware, and ransomware.
• Encryption, hashing, digital certificates, and TLS.
• Patching, backups, and system hardening.

Practical Work

• Perform basic networking and system tasks.
• Inspect simple traffic and logs.
• Review security settings and apply basic hardening.

Applied Project

Assess a simulated organization by identifying assets, threats, vulnerabilities, and risks, then produce recommendations and a concise security report.

Expected Outcomes

• Analyze basic network communication.
• Use Windows and Linux for foundational security tasks.
• Identify common risks and apply basic protection measures.
• Produce an introductory security report.

Prerequisites

• No previous cybersecurity experience is required.
• Basic computer literacy is sufficient.

Progression Requirement

Successful completion of this level and its project is required before Level 2.