Introduction to Cybersecurity (Alberti)

In this pre-test for the Introduction to Cybersecurity course students and teachers can determine their general skills and current knowledge base before starting the course.

In this lesson, students learn that since the Internet is used to send, receive, and store valuable personal information, users are put at risk of having this information stolen through cyber attacks. Cybersecurity is a field that involves several disciplines of computer science. It is valuable to build basic computer science literacy no matter what field you eventually enter.

In this lesson, students will learn what is meant by cybersecurity and explore a few news worthy cyber attacks. They will also discuss the Internet of Things and the increase in connected devices.

Cybersecurity is the protection of computer systems, networks, and data from digital attacks. Increased connectivity via the Internet of Things and reliance on computer devices to send and store data makes users more vulnerable to cyber attacks.

In this lesson, students will learn and examine recent cyber attacks. Cyber attacks result in financial loss, lowered trust, disruption of important services, and more. There is a growing need for cybersecurity experts, and careers in the field are lucrative with high-impact.

In this lesson, students will learn about The CIA Triad. The CIA Triad is a widely-accepted security measure that should be guaranteed in every secure system. It stands for Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.

• Confidentiality is the protection of information from people who are not authorized to view it.
• Integrity aims at ensuring that information is protected from unauthorized or unintentional alteration.
• Availability is the assurance that systems and data are accessible by authorized users when and where needed.

In this lesson, students complete a summative assessment of the unit’s learning objectives.

In this lesson, students understand how they can control and protect their footprint. As students use the Internet, they are building their digital footprint. This includes social media posts, emails, picture and video uploads amongst other online activities.

In this lesson, students will learn about and discuss cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is the use of electronic communication to harass or target someone. Cyberbullying includes sending, posting, or sharing negative, harmful, false, or mean content about someone else.

In this lesson, students will learn to recognize online predatory behavior and strategies on how to avoid and respond to it. The Internet is a great place to socialize, but it is important to be aware of risks. Common sense and following safety guidelines can help students stay safe online.

In this lesson, students will discuss and examine policies regarding privacy and security. Using best practices like setting strong passwords, reading privacy policies, and using https can help in staying safe online.

In this lesson, students will learn about and discuss information literacy. Information literacy is having the ability to find information, evaluate information credibility, and use information effectively.

In this lesson, students will learn what copyright laws are and how to avoid copyright infringement. They will explore why copyright laws are important and how they protect the creators.

In this lesson, students will explore and discuss the ethics and legality around hacking. A security hacker is someone who seeks to break through defenses and exploit weaknesses in a computer system or network. There are white hat hackers, who help companies find and protect exploits in their systems, and black hat hackers who hack maliciously.

Now that students have learned about digital citizenship and cyber hygiene, they will take what they have learned and create a PSA to inform members in the community about a topic!

In this lesson, students complete a summative assessment of the unit’s learning objectives.

In this lesson, students will learn how basic encryption and decryption works. There is a need for secrecy when sending and receiving personal information. Encryption and decryption are used to protect personal information.

In this lesson, students will learn the history of cryptography. Humans have always had reasons to hide information, and throughout history they have used crypto systems of varying complexity to keep information safe.

Encryption enforces the confidentiality and integrity of a network by preventing from unauthorized parties from viewing or tampering with information.

In this lesson, students will learn and practice using the Caesar Cipher. The Caesar Cipher is an encryption method that predates computers in which each letter of the message is shifted by a certain amount, called the key.

In this lesson, students will practice using brute force and letter frequency to crack the Caesar Cipher. The Caesar Cipher is an encryption method in which each letter of the message is shifted by a certain amount, called the key. Cracking the Caesar Cipher with brute force (trying every combination) is a trivial matter for modern computers.

In this lesson, students will learn and use the Vigenère Cipher. The Vigenère Cipher consists of several Caesar ciphers in sequence with different shift values based on a keyword, so brute force and letter frequency analysis do not work.

In this lesson, students will review the Caesar cipher and history of cryptography until the present day to bridge to the current topic of advanced cryptography. They will examine a high-level view of “hard” vs. “easy” problems. Symmetric vs. asymmetric encryption and public-key encryption will be emphasized.

In this lesson, students will learn and use hashing functions. They will look at what hashing is, requirements of a good hashing algorithm, how hashing is used, what the ideal hash function does, collisions in hashing, and how hackers try to crack a hashing algorithm.

In this lesson, students look at hash function development by delving into modulo math. Modulo math is very important in advanced cryptography since it’s a one-way function where the output hides the input very well. This makes it useful in creating hashing functions.

In this project, students will get to create a newscast about a cipher! This could be pre-recorded or presented live and could be a great way to vary the standard group presentation on a topic. The components of the presentation should include:

• Introduction to newscast
• Breaking news or lead story
• Expert or on-scene interview (this can be part of the lead story or second story)
• Second story
• Commercial
• Wrap-up of newscast

In this lesson, students complete a summative assessment of the unit’s learning objectives.

Now that students have learned about digital citizenship and cyber hygiene, they will take what they have learned and create a PSA to inform members in the community about a topic!