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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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In this lesson, students complete a summative assessment of the unit’s learning objectives.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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In this lesson, students complete a summative assessment of the unit’s learning objectives.
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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!
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In this lesson, students will learn about the basic functions and types of operating systems. Students will also explore the process for upgrading and installing Windows and Mac operating systems.
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In this lesson, students delve deeper into the differences between the three main operating systems. They learn how operating systems store and manage files and the differences and similarities in each system’s interface.
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In this lesson, students continue to compare and contrast different operating systems. Students learn how operating systems use file extensions to determine how to view different data types and how some extensions are only compatible with specific operating systems. Additionally, students learn about processors and the difference between a 32-bit processor and a 64-bit processor.
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In this lesson, students learn about the different types of software. Through interactive exercises, students explore how different software can be used in the workplace and our every day lives. Students also learn about single and cross-platform software.
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In this lesson, students learn about the different types of software licenses as well as the different methods of installing software based on the application’s architecture.
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In this lesson, students will learn about the importance of application security and what they can do to protect applications once they have been installed on a device.
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In this lesson, students will learn about browser security features and ways to configure their browsers to enhance security.
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In this lesson, students learn how to use user accounts and permissions to secure a device. Students also learn about system hardening and how to strengthen the security of a network by setting up and implementing host security.
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In this lesson, students learn how to use the command line interface to interact with files and folders, and access information about computer processes.
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In this lesson, students will extend their understanding of securing a network to include securing mobile devices. Students will learn about best practices for mobile device security as well as how BYOD (bring your own device) policies have impacted a company’s network security.
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In this lesson, students complete a summative assessment of the module’s learning objectives.
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In this lesson, students will learn the basics of what a programming language does and the differences between compilers and interpreters. Students will also learn about data types and how to initialize and assign values to variables.
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In this lesson, students will look under the hood of web sites and web applications by using “view page source” in a browser. This will enable them to see HTML markup for images, navigation, and page layouts, CSS styling, and even JavaScript source code or links to JS files. Students will also view code that has been minified and understand what that means. Lastly, students will also take a first look at OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) which is an important organization in cybersecurity.
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In this lesson, students will learn about and use the developer tools in a browser. Web developers actually use these to help build and test websites. Cyber professionals need to be very familiar with the different ways of looking at how sites and apps function so they can use various tools to detect vulnerabilities or even detect attacks as they are starting.
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In this lesson, students will learn about the impact of visually representing data to make information easier to analyze and use.
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In this lesson, students will take a look at what databases are, how they are organized and used, the major parts of a database, and what a database schema is and generally looks like.
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In this lesson, students take a look at what client and server devices and applications are, the client-server model, and how databases are part of that client-server model. They will get a high-level view of how clients and servers work together to help exchange information and data over a network or the Internet.
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In this lesson, students will be introduced to SQL (structured query language). Students will also learn how a database is structured into tables and rows.
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In this lesson, we learn about and use the SELECT statement in SQL. The SELECT statement is used to query the database and return a row or multiple rows from a table in the database.
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In this lesson, students learn about the WHERE clause and basic filtering of queries in SQL.
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In this lesson, students learn the overall concept of security: what it means to them personally and what it means to organizations in a digital world. They will reflect on what makes them feel secure.
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This lesson provides an overview of what SQL injection is, the impact, how it works, and how hackers use SQL to attack a site. The lesson also has connections on the Equifax cyber attack that was a very large scale SQL injection.
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In this lesson, students will learn and discuss types of SQLi and ways to prevent or at least mitigate an attack.
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In this project, students will get to test a site for vulnerabilities and write a security assessment report about their findings and recommendations.
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In this portion of the project, students will come up with a fictitious company and feel the impact of reacting to a security breach without any pre-developed policy in place. Students will then learn about some of the common policies companies put in place and set forth on the task of developing strong policies for their company.
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Incident response plans are essential to ensure that companies are prepared to effectively respond to any breach in security. In this portion of the project, students will develop a set of policies regarding strong passwords and employee training. They will test their policies against a series of employee negligence scenarios and reflect on what would need to be added to strengthen their policy.
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In this portion of the project, students will create an abbreviated Incident Response plan. They will respond to a cyber attack using their IR plan and reflect on how they were able to handle this attack as well as how to strengthen their policy.
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Data can be one of a company’s most valuable resources, not to mention most regulated. Developing a strong plan for keeping data secure is essential, especially as more and more companies turn to the cloud to keep track of the massive amounts of data that are being collected every day. In this portion of the project, students will review an example privacy policy and then complete their own abbreviated policy. They will test their data policies against a data breach and reflect on what would need to be added to strengthen their policy.
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Change management is the approach to preparing and supporting individuals and/or teams to successfully adopt organizational change. When implementing changes within a company, it is essential to consider how you will present the change to employees and support them in adopting and implementing the change. In this portion of the project, students will synthesize the changes that need to be made to strengthen their policies. They will develop a change management plan to implement new policies effectively.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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In this lesson, students will explore at a high-level what the internet is and how the internet works.
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In this lesson, students will learn what a number system is, the difference between the decimal number system and the binary number system, and how to convert between decimal and binary.
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In this lesson, students will learn about the hexadecimal number system, and how it is useful in storing digital information. They will also learn how to convert numbers from the hexadecimal system to binary and vice versa.
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In this lesson, students will explore the hardware that makes up the internet and the characteristics of that hardware that define our experience on the internet.
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In this lesson, students will explore how internet hardware communicates using Internet Addresses and the Internet Protocol.
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In this lesson, students will explore the DNS system and how it maps human readable domain names into actual accessible IP addresses.
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In this lesson, students explore how messages get from one address on the internet to another.
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In this lesson, students learn about the last piece of the puzzle for how the Internet works: Packets and Protocols. All information sent over the internet is broken down into small groups of bits called packets. The format for creating and reading packets is defined by open protocols so that all devices can read packets from all other devices.
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In this lesson, students learn how all of the pieces of the puzzle (IP addresses, the DNS system, routing, and packets and protocols) fit together to send information over the internet. Students will extend these new concepts to consider net neutrality and its ramifications on cybersecurity.
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In this lesson, students are presented with different ways that the Internet impacts their lives. The Internet affects the way that people communicate (emails, social media, video chat) and collaborate to solve problems. It has revolutionized the way that people can learn and even buy things. Because the Internet is present in almost every facet of people’s lives, there are severe ethical and legal concerns that derive from the Internet.
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In this lesson, students will learn about the essential internal components that make up a computer. Component categories include the motherboard (system board), firmware (BIOS), CPU (processor), GPU (graphics processor), storage, cooling, and NIC (network adapter).
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In this lesson, students will learn and explain the purposes and use of various peripheral types. They will classify the peripherals as input or output devices and explore different ways of installing them on a laptop or PC.
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In this lesson, students will learn about different networking devices that allow devices to connect to other devices as well as the Internet. They will also learn different networking connection methods such as using dialup, DSL, coax cables, and fiber optic cables.
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In this lesson, students will learn about the different storage options including local storage, network storage, and cloud storage.
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In this lesson, students will learn about the different network types and options that are available. This will include wireless networking standards and protocols.
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In this lesson, students will learn about different ports and protocols and how they can be protected using a firewall. They will explore port scans and how to set firewall rules.
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In this lesson, students will learn about different CLI commands and tools that will provide network information. Students will also take a look at network connection logs to determine the legitimacy of specific login attempts.
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In this lesson, students complete a summative assessment of the module’s learning objectives.
In this lesson, students explore what it means to be a cybersecurity professional. Students learn about a wide variety of cybersecurity careers, what each job entails, and what skills sets are needed to be successful. Students learn about the importance of communication and practice responding to a customer support call.
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In this lesson, students continue to develop their customer service skills by writing a knowledge base article. Students will research a common network issue and create an article that effectively details the steps to resolve it. Students will also go through a peer review process as a way to practice giving and receiving feedback.
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In this lesson, students learn about the planning and recording process of making an instructional video. Students will create their own video by first planning the topic and audience as well as writing a script and storyboard. Students will then learn how to record and edit their video.
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In this lesson, students are introduced to the concept of risk assessment, and students learn about the role of vulnerability scans in detecting weaknesses. Students also learn about honeypots and packet sniffing and explore how these tools can be used to detect vulnerabilities and improve the security of a network.
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In this lesson, students will identify, assess, and prioritize risks based on their potential impacts. Students will utilize prior knowledge to connect to the concept of prioritizing risks. They will learn new types of vulnerabilities such as input and error handling.
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In this lesson, students continue to deepen their understanding of risk assessment. Students learn how to prioritize and respond to different threats by calculating risk, both quantitatively and qualitatively.
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In this lesson, students learn about penetration testing and how pen tests extend vulnerability scans by attempting to exploit weaknesses in addition to finding them. Students have the opportunity to engage in a pen test simulation as well as learn about the next evolution of pen testing, chaos engineering.
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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.
SWBAT complete the assessment.
In this posttest for the Introduction to Cybersecurity course, students and teachers can determine students’ general skills and current knowledge after completing the course.
SWBAT complete the assessment.
In this project, students will work through fictitious forensic cases to practice collecting, examining, analyzing and reporting on data that they have unveiled. In this portion of the project, students will learn what digital forensics is, what types of data can be used, and how the chain of custody must be kept throughout the whole process to protect the integrity of the data.
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In this portion of the project, students will examine and analyze event log data collected from a system firewall. They will report on their findings to either support or refute the claim given in the introduction activity.
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In this portion of the project, students will examine and analyze file metadata collected from a word processing program. They will report on their findings to either support or refute the claim given in the introduction activity.
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In this portion of the project, students will examine and analyze exif data collected from the inspector tool of an image viewing program. They will also use a command line interface simulation to unveil even more exif data. They will report on their findings to either support or refute the claim given in the introduction activity.
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In this culminating course project, students will get to research and create a presentation with a handout/flyer around either user education or a cyber security career with the intended audience being the general public.
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In this lesson, students will be introduced to HTML: the language for building web pages. Students will discover why HTML is important and how it works in order to start building their own web pages.
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This lesson builds toward the following Enduring Understandings (EUs) and Learning Objectives (LOs). Students should understand that…
In this lesson, students will level up from learning about simple tags to full HTML documents. Students will discover some new tags that allow information to be placed in different areas of the web page. Students will also learn about the nested tree structure of an HTML document.
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This lesson builds toward the following Enduring Understandings (EUs) and Learning Objectives (LOs). Students should understand that…
In this lesson, students learn about formatting tags that let them modify the appearance of text and make their web pages look clear and aesthetically pleasing.
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This lesson builds toward the following Enduring Understandings (EUs) and Learning Objectives (LOs). Students should understand that…
In this lesson, students learn how to add hyperlinks to their web pages using the <a> tag.
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This lesson builds toward the following Enduring Understandings (EUs) and Learning Objectives (LOs). Students should understand that…
In this lesson, students learn how to add images to their own web pages using the <img> tag!
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This lesson builds toward the following Enduring Understandings (EUs) and Learning Objectives (LOs). Students should understand that…
In this lesson, students learn how to add lists to their web pages and practice making different kinds of lists.
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This lesson builds toward the following Enduring Understandings (EUs) and Learning Objectives (LOs). Students should understand that…
In this lesson, students learn how to create and add tables to their web pages!
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This lesson builds toward the following Enduring Understandings (EUs) and Learning Objectives (LOs). Students should understand that…
In this lesson, students will use HTML styling to make their pages visually appealing and unique.
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This lesson builds toward the following Enduring Understandings (EUs) and Learning Objectives (LOs). Students should understand that…
In this lesson, students will begin using CSS to add styling to their HTML pages.
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This lesson builds toward the following Enduring Understandings (EUs) and Learning Objectives (LOs). Students should understand that…
In this lesson, students use CSS tag selectors to select all elements of the same kind (<table>, or <h1> for example) and give them all the same style.
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This lesson builds toward the following Enduring Understandings (EUs) and Learning Objectives (LOs). Students should understand that…
In this lesson, students learn to use CSS class selectors to apply CSS styling to all HTML elements that share a specified class which allows students to be more specific when applying their styling.
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This lesson builds toward the following Enduring Understandings (EUs) and Learning Objectives (LOs). Students should understand that…
In this lesson, students will use CSS Selectors by ID to select a single element to format on a webpage.
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This lesson builds toward the following Enduring Understandings (EUs) and Learning Objectives (LOs). Students should understand that…
In this lesson, students learn what a URL is and what happens when they visit a URL.
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This lesson builds toward the following Enduring Understandings (EUs) and Learning Objectives (LOs). Students should understand that…
In this lesson, students complete a summative assessment of the unit’s learning objectives.
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As part of the AP Test, students are required to complete two Performance Tasks (PTs). Performance tasks are meant to be project-based challenges that touch multiple concepts from the course that produce a digital artifact. In this Practice PT, students will be developing their first digital artifact: their very own website! This website will start off as their own personal homepage and as students progress through the course, they will keep adding links to their favorite projects. By the end of the course, this homepage will serve as their own personal portfolio website showcasing their work!
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This lesson builds toward the following Enduring Understandings (EUs) and Learning Objectives (LOs). Students should understand that…
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