Review - Is IT Fundamentals for Cybersecurity Specialization on Coursera Worth it?

Learning the information technology (IT) fundamentals in general and cyber security is a good investment in yourself since there is a massive demand for these skills. Companies need people to secure their infrastructure, such as their servers where they host the website and user's data, monitor their network for unauthorized access, and scan the employee computers for any trojan and viruses that could give hackers control over your system.

Last few years, there was a significant increase in the courses. Hackers are now using artificial intelligence to discover new methods for bypassing their infrastructure and controlling their systems.

The malware is also being developed every day. It makes them very hard to detect and recognized before they harm your systems.

Learning cyber security is not only understanding how to use the tools to discover the vulnerabilities and opened ports but also understanding how the network works and how the viruses create and infect the systems, and how to discover new vulnerabilities that hackers could take advantage of in your system.

Many courses teach you these skills, and I want to recommend a course created by one of the largest companies called IT Fundamentals for Cybersecurity Specialization offered by IBM.

1. The Instructors Review

IBM is a massive company in the USA headquarter in New York and run their services in over 171 countries. They created above eight courses in the Coursera platform with instructors who have experience in their field. Some are professors in their area to take the course from experienced people, not just amateurs and regular people.

2. Course Content

2.1. Introduction to Cybersecurity Tools & Cyber Attacks

You will first start learning about the history of cyber security, the key terms, the different security threats that could be used to attack your systems, and how to assess these vulnerabilities. Then you will learn the different types of attacks and how organizations get hacked, the impact on these organizations that could make them lose the trust of their users and millions of dollars, and learn about the available tools to assist you in cyber security investigation.

You will overview key security concepts and understand the CIA Triad: confidentiality, integrity, and availability. You will learn about critical security tools like Firewalls, antivirus, antimalware, different types of cryptography, and more.

2.2. Cybersecurity Roles, Processes & Operating System Security

You will learn in this section about IT security and the framework used by the company to secure their systems, roles inside the organization for the employee who works in cyber security. You will deep dive into more about the CIA Triad and why it is essential to understand cyber security and best practices to apply them and the authentication and access control.

Then you will move to learn the security of the operating system, which you will start by learning how to navigate the system files of windows and also learn about Linux and macOS. Finally, learn about virtualization and cloud computing and their security.

2.3. Cybersecurity Compliance Framework & System Administration

You will learn the importance of understanding the compliance framework and the industry standards related to cyber security, the cyber security challenges that almost all organizations face in their daily operation, and an overview of the USA cyber security federal laws. You will also learn about client system administration, patching, endpoint protection, and more.

You will move to learn about the user management in the windows and Linux operating systems and the different vulnerabilities in every operating system and the file system of Linux and its basic terminal command to interact with the operating system and gain permissions. Finally, learn about cryptography and how to encrypt your data in transit, digital signatures, hashing, and more.

2.4. Network Security & Database Vulnerabilities

You will learn about the network such as TCP/IP frameworks and how the routers work, firewall filter, the differences between the IDS and IPS systems, and network packets. Next, you will learn about IP addressing and how it affects the network traffic routings, DNS & DHCP, and transport protocols such as UDP and TCP.

Then you will learn about databases and the different data sources, and the best practices to secure your organization's data. You will also learn about structured data and relational databases and the common database vulnerability of SQL injection.

Conclusion

The cyber security field is an essential role inside any organization in a world where people are taking advantage of zero-day vulnerabilities to hack systems and steals users data and destroy companies reputation, so every company now invest a lot of money hiring talented people to secure their systems.