Network Defense and Ethical Hacking

🎯 Course Overview

This course provides students with practical exposure to offensive and defensive cybersecurity. Students learn to simulate attacks, test network vulnerabilities, and design countermeasures using professional tools in an isolated lab setup.

🧠 Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to:

  1. Explain hacking phases and methodologies ethically.

  2. Conduct reconnaissance, scanning, exploitation, and post-exploitation safely.

  3. Configure IDS/IPS and firewalls for defense.

  4. Perform vulnerability assessments and report findings.

  5. Apply mitigation and hardening strategies for common network attacks.

📅 Weekly Module Plan

Week 1 — Introduction to Ethical Hacking

  • Topics: CIA triad, hacking lifecycle, legal boundaries, lab setup.

  • Lab: Build a virtual lab using VirtualBox (Kali Linux, Metasploitable, Security Onion).

  • Activity: Ethical hacking code of conduct + NDA/ethics form.

Week 2 — Information Gathering & Reconnaissance

  • Topics: Active vs passive reconnaissance, footprinting, OSINT.

  • Tools: Nmap, Maltego, Shodan.

  • Lab: Perform network scanning and map live hosts using Nmap.

  • Assignment: Create a reconnaissance report.

Week 3 — Scanning & Enumeration

  • Topics: Port scanning, service detection, SMB/FTP enumeration.

  • Tools: Nmap scripts, Netcat, Enum4linux.

  • Lab: Discover open ports and enumerate services.

  • Quiz 1: Network scanning and vulnerabilities.

Week 4 — Exploitation & Gaining Access

  • Topics: Exploit development basics, Metasploit usage, privilege escalation.

  • Lab: Exploit a vulnerable machine (Metasploitable2).

  • Tools: Metasploit, Hydra, John the Ripper.

  • Assignment: Write an exploitation report (with screenshots and mitigation).

Week 5 — Post-Exploitation & Maintaining Access

  • Topics: Backdoors, persistence, privilege escalation, covering tracks.

  • Lab: Create and detect a persistence mechanism in Windows VM.

  • Tools: Mimikatz, Powershell Empire.

  • Quiz 2: Post-exploitation and privilege escalation.

Week 6 — Network Defense & Reporting

  • Topics: Network hardening, IDS/IPS (Snort, Suricata), firewalls, SIEM basics.

  • Lab: Configure Suricata to detect Nmap scan signatures.

  • Final Project: Perform a full penetration test & produce a detailed report.

🧩 Assessment Breakdown