Systems Architecture

This package consists of CYRIN labs focusing on the NIST National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Systems Architecture specialty area. Completing these labs will help you learn the skills needed for a job in the area.

Prerequisites vary by lab, but are generally: familiarity with the Unix/Linux command line and basic networking concepts (TCP/IP, DNS, etc.).

EXPECTED DURATION

22.0 hours, self-paced. Pause and continue at any time.
22.0 CPEs awarded on successful completion.

• Introductory IDS Configuration with Snort

  Students will learn how to configure an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to examine traffic to/from a firewall. The popular Snort^® IDS will be used in this exercise. The exercise will include both harmless background traffic and potentially-malicious traffic to be detected by Snort.

• Intrusion Detection using Zeek (formerly Bro)

  Students will learn how to deploy, configure and customize a Zeek Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS). They will customize Zeek to generate enterprise specific logs and to send email notifications of events of interest. They will also create a simple Zeek plugin, using the Zeek scripting language, to detect and block brute force SSH login attempts.

• Firewall Configuration with IPtables

  Students will configure a network firewall using the standard Linux IPtables module. The exercise will include both ingress and egress filtering, stateful packet inspection, and best practices. More advanced techniques such as port knocking will also be introduced. Evaluation will include network probes from both inside and outside the firewall to ensure proper rules are configured.

• Firewall Configuration with pfSense

  Students will learn to secure and configure the widely used, open-source pfSense firewall. They will learn to create firewall rules, the order in which rules are applied, how pfSense aliases can be used to simplify the pfSense rule set, and how to secure pfSense itself. They will also learn to view statistics and logs collected by pfSense.

• VPN Server Configuration with OpenVPN

  Students will learn to configure and set up an OpenVPN server. OpenVPN is an open-source Virtual Private Network (VPN) solution. VPNs extend a private network over a public network, allowing users to send and receive data the public networks as if they are directly connected to the private network.

  Students will learn to set up a Certificate Authority to create the keys and certificates needed to (1) authenticate users (VPN clients) and the VPN server and, (2) encrypt communication between the two. They will also learn how to revoke client certificates when needed.

• Split-Horizon DNS Configuration using BIND

  Hackers shouldn’t be able to explore your internal network. To make sure they do not, you need to learn about split horizon DNS configuration. And it might help to know something about BIND, probably the most used DNS software on the internet.

  In this lab, students will configure a split-horizon DNS infrastructure that consists of two DNS servers: An External DNS server and an Internal DNS server. The External DNS lives in the organization’s DMZ network; it is used by external hosts to resolve names of servers in the DMZ. The Internal DNS lives in the organization’s internal network and is reachable only by hosts on the internal network. It resolves names of hosts on the internal network.

  The lab uses BIND, the most popular DNS server in use today.

• Configure an Enterprise Network

  In this exercise students must configure the firewalls and routers of an enterprise network in accordance with the security policies of the organization. The computers and network devices in the network have been physically connected but the firewalls and routers have not been configured. You must configure these firewalls and routers to implement policies related to how traffic to/from the Internet and traffic between the different subnets is handled. This exercise is brought to you by the Rochester Institute of Technology-Global Cybersecurity Institute.

  This exercise uses pfSense, an open-source firewall and router that is used by thousands of enterprises and officially supported by Netgate. Students must be familiar with the pfSense console and web interfaces. Those not familiar with pfSense are encouraged to complete the CYRIN Firewall Configuration with pfSense lab before attempting this exercise.

• SSH Server Configuration

  Students learn the proper setup of the OpenSSH remote administration tool, including security-relevant settings. During the exercise, students will learn best practices such as host filtering, public-key or Kerberos authentication, and PAM integration.

• Host IDS Setup with OSSEC

  Students learn how to configure and run the widely-used, free OSSEC Host Intrusion Detection System (HIDS). During the exercise, students will learn how to check for rootkits using OSSEC, how to verify file integrity, how to set up passive and active responses, and more. Host intrusion detection is critical to maintaining a secure system, and is required by HIPAA and PCI regulations, both of which OSSEC can help you meet.

• Secure Configuration of the Apache Web Server

  Students will learn how to set up a web server securely by configuring the commonly-used Apache HTTP Server^® on a Linux system. Security options will be explored, including location/directory restrictions, permissions, authentication, and SSL configuration.

• DoS Attacks and Defenses

  This lab teaches three different Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and techniques to mitigate them:

  1. A TCP SYN Flood attack that exploits a weakness in the design of the TCP transport protocol,
  2. A slow HTTP attack called Slowloris that takes advantage of how HTTP servers work, and
  3. A DNS amplification attack that exploits misconfigured DNS servers, of which there are plenty on the Internet.

Price included 6 months of access.