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CYBV385

Introduction to Cyber Operations

Course Description

CYBV 385 provides students an introduction to the concepts of Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability (CIA) basics together with authentication and non-repudiation; vulnerabilities; security principles and testing; operating systems; and cryptography. CYBV 385 meets the National Security Agency (NSA) Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations (CAE-CO) academic requirements for security fundamental principles as well as the identification and mitigation of security vulnerabilities.

Learning Outcomes

The student will:

  • Recognize the fundamental principles underlying cyber security; how these principles interrelate and are typically employed to achieve assured solutions; and the mechanisms that may be built from, or due to, these principles.
  • Identify which fundamental security design principles are in play; how they interrelate; and methods in which they should be applied to develop systems worthy of trust.
  • Recognize and explain how failures in fundamental security design principles can lead to system vulnerabilities that can be exploited as part of an offensive cyber operation.
  • Identify and explain the various types of vulnerabilities (design and/or implementation weaknesses); their underlying causes; their identifying characteristics; the ways in which they are exploited; and potential mitigation strategies.
  • Define and explain how to apply fundamental security design principles during system design, development, and implementation to minimize vulnerabilities.
  • Characterize how a vulnerability, in a given context, may be applied to alternative contexts and to adapt vulnerabilities so that lessons from them can be applied to alternative contexts.
  • Exercise critical thinking strategies including reasoning, problem solving, analysis and evaluation by:
    • Identifying vulnerabilities.
    • Identifying Method-Opportunity-Motive and how to mitigate vulnerabilities by reduction.
    • Recognizing how information system security design, policies, practices and people defend against threats in cyberspace.

Course Objectives

The student will:

  • Study the fundamentals of computer security
  • Study the security fundamentals within operating systems
  • Study unintentional programming oversights
  • Study a variety of system vulnerabilities
  • Study User and Developer countermeasures
  • Study security design principles
  • Conduct a data encryption lab