Studies in IT security

In the cryptography module, we first covered cryptographic fundamentals and later looked at their practical application. The fundamentals included symmetric and asymmetric encryption, hash functions and MACs, mathematical foundations of cryptography, digital signatures, key exchange, authentication, and secure channels. The practical part covered digital certificates, public key infrastructures, cryptographic standards, secure messaging, and transport layer security.

In the system and network security module, the topics included firewalls, stateless and stateful packet filters, application-level gateways, intrusion detection systems, authentication protocols, secure shell and layer 4 tunneling methods, virtual private networking, layer 2 authentication methods, and wireless security architectures. Practical use of network security tools was also taught in labs.

In the malware module, we looked at cybercrime in general, the spread of malware in the context of botnets, and how malware itself works. We learned the functional mechanisms of malware and analyzed the structure and behavior of malicious software through reverse engineering.