Computer Security for Home User course

Hello everyone.

I am developing an Introduction to Computer Security course for home users. I intend to teach it through local computer training facilities, and it is aimed total newbies. I'm thinking about people that have just gotten a high-speed connection and have no clue as to what that all entails. Does anyone know if there are any other courses like this out there? I would like to compare what I have so far to someone else's effort to see if I missed anything or if I could get any ideas from them.

Thanks

Umm...... what kind of qualifications do you have? Not that I don't doubt you are fully capable of such an endeavor, but the last thing the internet needs is more incorrect information..

Question:
"I have a virus, how do I get rid of it"
Answer:
"Use Ad-aware or Spyboy, they're free" :rolleyes:

Also, if you are qualified, who gives a **** what other people have on their page? Maybe they don't know what they are talking about. Misinformation breeds misinformation....

If you need to check out other people's pages for ideas, maybe you aren't ready for your own yet? Besides, what is going to make your page different from any other one?

Ok, it sounds like I'm giving you a bad time... so I'll try to be helpful. I don't know of any online security courses that are geared towards the home user. Why? Maybe the home user is to busy with E-bay and porn to really care? As long as they can get their email, they're happy.

Good luck with your project. A google search of "Introduction to Computer Security course for home users" turns up essentially nothing, so maybe you have a niche.

Cheers

1. Had I been looking for your approval, I would have posted my credentials. I'll let you draw your own conclusions from the fact that I didn't.

Right now, my only qualification that matters is that I'm willing to explain deeply technical subjects to new users, many of which have been scared off by a community that is rife with socially inept egotistical losers who think that their knowledge of an arcane subject somehow elevates them above other people who happen to be skilled on other areas.

Not that I expected to encounter any such here at AntiOnline :)

2. I care about what other people have to say about this issue because I believe that I am fallible. I believe that someone else may have thought of something that I have not, and that perhaps I could learn from them. It's called research.

3. It's the home user that is satisfied with Ebay, porn and email that I want to reach, because it's legions of those users that enable things like distributed denial of service attacks to happen. You may have heard of the group that was boasting about having control of 45,000 computers and using them to route spam. Perhaps if those 45,000 owners knew how to protect their machines we wouldn't have to deal with so much of it.

Of course, If it's for the total noob, they are not going to kave a clue what you're talking about when you say DDoS. Maybe a good idea to either require an intro to computer concepts or teach it as a part of the curriculum. I wouldn't go too far back (Stonehenge, abacus, Babbage, ARPANET....), just through the evolution of the MS-DOS/Windows/Windows NT OS.

I'd cover topics like basic OS hardening, backups, pop ups, browser hijacks, passwords (not using the same one for everything), the importance of virus scanning, malware, personal software and hardware firewalls, phishing, identity theft, and social engineering overview, what to do when hacked, etc.

Might want to use some PowerPoint or Flash presentations. If you need any material for the class, PM me. I'e got tons of free time and I'd be glad to help.

and never forget the importance of patching a system. If users patched there systems up with current vender patches, a lot of the compromises wouldnt happened. I think having a small section on how to prevent successful enumeration technique's would be pretty cool = ).

Sounds like a good idea, i wish you luck with your course.

Perhaps instead of getting offended by someone questioning your credentials, which on a side note you still have not provided, you should post a syllabus of your proposed class. That way we could get an idea of what you know, and what you plan on teaching these "total newbies".

You state:

"Right now, my only qualification that matters is that I'm willing to explain deeply technical subjects to new users, many of which have been scared off by a community that is rife with socially inept egotistical losers who think that their knowledge of an arcane subject somehow elevates them above other people who happen to be skilled on other areas."

Regardles of your personal opinion of some of us, your qualifications on the topic is extremely important. I like to tinker with automobiles, I am attempting a restoration of a 67 Mustang, I love to talk cars with people, I will not however be teaching any classes any time soon. Get the point, for all we know you are the "semi-newbie" teaching the "total newbie".

Hexadecimal, if you feel like posting any links to where a person with limited knowledge in security such as myself could read up, I would be grateful.

I could use some good reading on these materials.

(I'd cover topics like basic OS hardening, backups, pop ups, browser hijacks, passwords (not using the same one for everything), the importance of virus scanning, malware, personal software and hardware firewalls, phishing, identity theft, and social engineering overview, what to do when hacked, etc. )

It'd be pretty cool to hand out free versions of antivirus and personal firewalls for those that are not willing to dish out the cash.

FW
AV

Since these are free, I don't see there being a problem burning them to CD and handing them out. Along with the other freeware versions of spyware removers such as adaware and spybot. You may want to contact the vendors of the programs, just to make sure. If anything, it'll create sales because the users might want the added features that are not available in the free versions.

Offer solutions for popups like toolbar.google.com or using other browsers other than IE such as mozilla, opera, mozilla firebird, etc. Browser security settings. How to use a public PC and the dangers of cybercafes that could be infected with keyloggers, etc.

How to decide which services to disable (blackvipers page ) which may be a little too advanced for newbies. The personal firewall will provide some protection.

If you can come up with a CD full of cool utilities for people to play around with and give demonstrations on how they work or take an infected (spyware or viruses) unprotected machine and show them how to tell that it was infected or how to remove (if possible).

Just a couple of ideas off the top of my head.

boogymantroy, Here are a few of my favs:

http://www.antionline.com/
http://www.cert.org/
http://www.spitzner.net/
http://www.windowsecurity.com/
http://www.nsa.gov/isso/index.html
http://www.mynetwatchman.com/default.asp
http://www.hackerwatch.org/
http://secinf.net/
http://securityfocus.org/
http://www.malware.com/
http://www.commodon.com/
http://razor.bindview.com/
http://www.computersecuritynow.com/
http://www.whitehats.org/ Temp. down…we’re looking for a cheaper host.
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/hackers.html
http://www.foundstone.com/
http://www.hackingexposed.com/
http://www.blackviper.com/
http://www.2600.com
http://www.phrack.org
http://www.techrepublic.com
http://www.honeynet.org/

I agree with the PF and AV. I'd do that too. (great idea, phishphreek!) Contact some people like Sygate and Grisoft and get their permission to redistribute the CD.

Something else I just thought of... I posted about it in this thread A Visit from the FBI .

Basically, contact your local FBI office and see if they'd be interested in coming in and talking with your "students". Apparently, they are doing this now.

I personally like Zone-h.com , They have tons of good papers in there download section on security = )

Quote:

---

Originally posted here by 576869746568617

http://www.windowsecurity.com/

---

That's one of my favorites too; quality to boot. :D

The whitepapers section is a must read.

.dublix

Keep in mind that besides the 'socially inept egotistical losers ' there are also a lot of folks who just want to make sure that people are getting security information from people who know what they are talking about. Security is a 'hot topic'right now and as such there are many people who read Hacking exposed and decide to jump on the bandwagon, which creates more problems in the long run so needless to say people will voice concern whenever someone speaks about wanting to give advice to others.

Ok, now onto the course..

I think making sure you cover security measures that everyone can take. Keeping in mind that your target audience are going to be 99% Windows users you need to cover securing the OS as much as possible, so what can users do without buying XXX firewall etc... Then move onto firewalls, AV etc...

Perhaps begining with coverage of what the threats are as this sets the scene for what you are trying to protect against (although their is no need to go into an indepth discussion of a hack).

Also, could you try to hold back on the scare tactics (not saying you plan on doing this but just a heads up), the world is not about to be destoryed by a virus and hackers are not about to launch Nuclear missiles, so if you could enlighten people to the need for security without scaring the crap out of them that would be good.

Good luck.

I couldn't agree more, R0n1n. The selling point of the course is going to have to be that a complete noob can indeed secure a system without a mountain of technical knowledge. One drawback though is that I personally like to check the registry to ensure that my changes have taken effect.

In fact, most of the time I make my security changes within the registry and at the command line, (sue me....old-school UNIX admin) rather than rely on the GUI because I know that once I make the change there, the change has indeed been made.

The average user is not going to do this, and 99.999% of the target audience of this course are not going to even know what the registry is, much less how to modify it. (and in fact have no business doing this.)

The fact that some security settings require a registry edit to completely lock down (such as hardening protocol stacks) doesn't help this, so I guess that it would be best to stick to items that can be modidfied through the GUI, such as disabling services, file and directory access settings, and local security policy settings.

There I go ranting again :D

A big thanks to everyone who posted helpful information. I will be going through my course outline and comparing it to the topics that have been brought up to make sure that I've got all the bases covered.

Thanks again

Sorry to bring up an old thread... but its relevant. :) I still see that packet is suscribed to this thread and I think it'd be useful for his class.

A Home User's Security Checklist for Windows