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Tel Aviv University

Unlocking Information Security II: An Internet Perspective

Tel Aviv University and Campus - the Israeli National Project for Digital Learning via edX

Overview

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Information Security is everywhere: as the world becomes more and more digitized, so it becomes more and more hackable. Cyber attacks, data breaches, and even cyber warfare are all very real - so it's infinitely important to understand how hackers think and act, and how you can fight back.

In this course, which is the second part of the Unlocking Information Security program, you will turn your attention to the Internet: you'll start by learning about the inherent vulnerabilities lurking in the multiple layers of the Internet's protocol stack and then meet the first line of internet defenses. Next, you'll take an in-depth look at the modern cryptographic concepts that are at the core of internet security and discover the mathematical miracle that makes them possible.

With all this in mind, you will take a deep survey of the world wide web; understand the various technologies behind websites, how web servers and web browsers interact, how they can be attacked, and how they should be defended. Finally, you will learn about viruses, worms and trojans: what they are, how they spread, hide and attack, and the arms-race between them and the anti-virus industry.

This course was produced at Tel Aviv University by TAU Online - learning innovation center.

Taught by

Avishai Wool and Dan Gittik

Reviews

4.8 rating, based on 52 Class Central reviews

Start your review of Unlocking Information Security II: An Internet Perspective

  • Profile image for Raphael Freitas
    Raphael Freitas
    As Malory would say: -script-alert('This course is amazing!')-/script-. Avishai Wool and Dan Gittik have the knowledge but, more than this, they have the gift to teach. And what a gift! I want to thank you and all the staff which could make this course to happen. Just thank you people, I feel deeply honored by learning from this course end these people. Special mention to animated gifs, they are self-explanatory. Here in Brazil, I will talk with everyone about this course, about how it is great, big, different of all of courses!
  • Together with Part 1, this course forms a brilliant and engaging introduction to Cyber Security! The course structure, animations, informal tone, humour, insightful quizzes, challenging hackxercises in Python, all form a truly work of art and science to teach anyone how to be better digital citizens and instil the desire to go further into InfoSec! I strongly recommend both to everyone!
  • Anonymous
    bit trick and don't like the course at all, too mathematical and theoretical, i prefer to do another hands on than learn how the light was invented. In the world of constant evolution and changes we cannot lose many time learning theoretical content, we need to exercise more the concepts by osmosis. I not recommend this course for persons trying to find skills in computer security as this is very theoretical and tedious for some IT persons. It's more a scientific level of how the things were invented.
  • Anonymous
    It was a great journey with this course, I've learned so much than I thought I am going to do, everything from intro to the end was helpful and make me study more and gain more info as well as skills that I hope will help me continue this journey by myself and with sub materials that you provided for us to get deeper and deeper in cybersecurity.

    I thank every one who helped this course to become what its now, and I engorge anyone interested to take this course because it helped me and it will help you too.
  • Anonymous
    A very good course. A broad overview over secure connections and the web itself. It is challenging but fair and has furthermore some practical coding exercises.
  • Profile image for Dodoytis
    Dodoytis
    Awesome course! Really great! Avishai and Dan are really super skilled and very nice guys and their explanations are always very clear! The second part of the course is quite hard, it requires and intermediate knowledge of computer systems and some…
  • Anonymous
    Very good and intuitive explanations that help you dive deep to the information security world.
    Very recommended as a first course in the information security field.
  • Anonymous
    Fascinating and well structured, with many resources and quizzes, it is apparent that much effort was put into making this course happen.
  • Anonymous
    As a beginner in cryptography it is tough for me to understand all at once. The course must contain auxiliary content or videos on to cover the basics of computer science (just for the wholesomeness) so that novice can appreciate it.

    Part two is more enjoyable than part 1 probably because of less cryptography which makes me think that the lessons on cryptography should be made more easier so that people can remember and retain the working.

    I am again not happy with the codeboard and somewhat unclear/incomplete instructions in the quizzes.

    I really appreciate the tons of supplementary materials. The course is well paced and enjoyable overall. I would definitely recommend it to others.
  • Patrickdsouza
    I always wanted to learn about hacking , but found courses a bit expensive and I too, did not really find the time earlier.
    During the COVID-19 pandemic , thought I would just browse through this, but was totally engrossed with the lectures & the exercise and completed both parts. The lectures, videos and notes were very well designed & delivered. Though I must mention, programming and the Hackexercise was which a bit of an issue for this course.

    Though the lock-down is still imposed in most parts of the world and in Mumbai, India too, i will look into programming in python and will try to get myself certified later.

    thank you patrick dsouza... mumbai
  • Anonymous
    The course is a fast-paced comprehensive coverage of the field of cryptography. It has helped me to understand various concepts involved and has started me on the way to learning Python. I have taken this course under Audit Track and would have taken it via the verified track in case the fee was lower say around 30 to 40 USD. The combination of experience(bald head like mine) and the youthful energy of the instructors is a great combination. Alas the final touch about the endless chapters of this game between attackers and defenders somehow reminds me of the great game played between Russian and British Empires around Pamirs.
  • Anonymous
    Really good course. It covers the basics of information security, but shows how it fits in today's world, not just theoretically. Videos are well thought and explanations super clear.
    The course covers the most important and interesting topics of information security, and helps you connect all the dots between them. Since a lot of topics are covered, it helps you understand how the internet as we know works.
    Practical exercises help you understand what you've just learned, by coding it in Python. Really helpful.
    Thank you, I hope you do a Part III course!
  • Anonymous
    The theory part of the lesson is well structured and very informative. I have an better idea of the information security arms race, and how it's done. The course has a lot of checkpoints to test our understanding, and I think it's a great way to learn effectively.

    However, I thought the hands-on coding section, or the Hackxercise is has a significant barrier to entry, a lot of the questions are too ambiguous and advanced. I think it would be better to at least show some simple example/demostration before throwing us into the water.
  • Anonymous
    The second part is as great as the first one. There are many useful information contained in the course and it gives you overview of many aspects of information security. I like the fact that information is up to date and I like the openness of the instructors in trying to objectively assess many problems and applied solutions to those problems as well. Whole of the course gives you a hint on how well educated and knowledgeable one needs to be in order to grasp full scope of this vast field. Highly recommend.
  • Anonymous
    I enjoyed the hackxercises the most. I think for future courses it might be useful to consider beta testing the material as there were several errors in quizzes and exercises that were corrected during the course. This can be frustrating for some users and may lead to students dropping the course or not completing all the exercises.

    Overall, I thought the course was excellent and well worth the time and cost for certification.

    Thanks
  • Anonymous
    I really liked the course, you explained the material very well, programming exercises helped a lot in understanding the material.
    If you will make more courses I will definitely see them

    Improvement - The course was amazing, I would be happy if you could maybe share more about problems you come across daily, type of viruses , cyber attacks ,etc and how you dealt with them. - to update us on the common dangers today...

    thanks very mush
  • Anonymous
    I really enjoyed being exposed to new content and the depth of existing content.

    The presentations are clear, the explanations are simple to understand

    The exercises help, although there are no school solutions to the coding exercises.

    I learned a lot and at the same time I now internalized more than ever that we need to continue to be vigilant all the time when it comes to information security.
  • Anonymous
    Great bit(e)-size overview of the more in depth concepts you need to know in order to understand cyber security. Real structured overview of these concepts together with some practical implementation and a real good set of samples to make the point and explain what it (can) mean(s) in practice.
    If there is a next - third - course on this topic, I'm definitely in!
  • Anonymous
    This course is amazing, the course videos are fascinating as those in part I, the hack exercises are even more difficult, I wish more hints or related learning materials could be provided together with the exercises. Overall to say, this is a course I would definitely recommend to my friends who have interests in the topic of information security!!!
  • Anonymous
    Very impressed with part II, advanced cryptography and python libs walkthroughs were excellent, had to dig out my old o'reilly unix in a nutshell to look stuff up on a dog-eared 20 year old edition, challenging and fun, huge topic and interesting, thanks to the two instructors, engaging and easy to follow and made it very consumable

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