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Introduction to cyber security: stay safe online
Introduction to cyber security: stay safe online

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Week 1: Threat landscape

Introduction

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Welcome to this free course, Introduction to cyber security: stay safe online.

Cory Doctorow is your guide through this course. He is a visiting professor at The Open University. He’ll meet you at the start of each week to let you know what’s coming up and remind you of what you’ve learned so far to help you make the most of your learning.

About the course

Your journey into the world of cyber security and protecting your digital life has been organised into eight weeks of study. The first three weeks focus on understanding the basics of cyber security. This includes an exploration of the security threat landscape, together with some of the basic techniques for protecting your computers and your online information.

You’ll then look ‘under the hood’, exploring some of the technologies that underpin the internet and cyber security. This will include gaining an understanding of how computers are connected in a network and how the data transmitted across that network is kept secure.

In the final two weeks of the course, you’ll look at what can be done if you suffer a successful cyber security attack and how to develop an action plan. As part of this, you’ll learn about both the legal and technical aspects of recovering from an attack.

This course will not only help you take steps to protect yourself online, such as how to create a strong password, but also provide an overview of cyber security from the security threat landscape to how the internet works. It will also provide a foundation for further study of this important discipline.

To test your knowledge you can try the end-of-week practice and end-of-course compulsory badge quizzes.

The Open University would really appreciate a few minutes of your time to tell us about yourself and your expectations for the course before you begin, in our optional start-of-course survey [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . Participation will be completely confidential and we will not pass on your details to others.