Practical Foundations in Cybersecurity
  • 🖌️Practical Foundations in Cybersecurity
  • 1. IT career planning
    • Introduction - IT career planning
    • IT career paths – everything you need to know
    • Job roles in IT and cybersecurity
    • How to break into information security
    • The Security Operations Center (SOC) career path
    • The GRC analyst role
    • How to get CCNA certification
    • Job search strategy
  • 2. Introduction to cybersecurity
    • Introduction - Introduction to cybersecurity
    • Foundational cybersecurity concepts and practices
      • Information security definition
      • Confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information
      • Risk, threat, vulnerability
    • The cybersecurity threat landscape
    • Common cyber attacks
    • Risk mitigation methods
    • Network security risk mitigation best practices
  • 3. Cybersecurity GRC
    • Introduction - Cybersecurity GRC
    • Cybersecurity GRC
  • 4. Networking fundamentals
    • Introduction - Networking fundamentals
    • How data flow through the Internet
    • Network devices and their functions
    • The Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model
    • Host to host communication in networking
    • How switches facilitate communication
    • How routers facilitate communication
    • Network protocols and their functions
    • OSI model layers and security threats
  • 5. Wireless security and cryptography
    • Introduction - Wireless security and cryptography
    • SSL/TLS cryptography
    • Wireless network security
    • Hashing algorithms and message integrity
    • Cryptographic encryption and confidentiality
    • The SSL/TLS handshake
    • Message signing using asymmetric keys
    • Authentication methods
    • Replay attacks and anti-replay methods
    • Generating and applying an RSA key
    • IEEE 802.11 authentication methods
    • IEEE 802.11 privacy and integrity methods
    • Authentication and encryption in WPA, WPA2, and WPA3
  • 6. Practical foundations in ethical hacking
    • Introduction - Practical foundations in ethical hacking
    • What is professional ethical hacking
    • The perils of unethical hacking
    • Defensive security vs offensive security
    • Defensive cybersecurity technologies
    • Phases of the penetration testing process
    • Types of penetration testing
    • Pentesting methodologies, frameworks, and technologies
    • Common attack targets
  • 7. Conclusion
    • Introduction - Conclusion
    • Final words
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  1. 5. Wireless security and cryptography

The SSL/TLS handshake

This section explains how the SSL/TLS handshake establishes a secure communication channel between two endpoints

The SSL/TLS handshake (certificate validation and secure negotiation of symmetric session keys).

The core purpose of the handshake is to enable secure, encrypted communication via:

• Negotiating encryption algorithms (e.g., AES for symmetric encryption).

• Exchanging keys (using asymmetric encryption like RSA or ECC initially, then switching to symmetric encryption for efficiency).

• Ensuring confidentiality by encrypting data in transit.

The handshake ensures:

  1. Confidentiality – Data is encrypted (e.g., using AES).

  2. Integrity – Data isn’t tampered with (via hashes/MACs).

  3. Authentication – The server (and optionally client) proves identity (via certificates).

  4. Forward Secrecy (if using ephemeral keys) – Past sessions can’t be decrypted even if the private key is later compromised.

The SSL/TLS handshake establishes a secure communication channel between two endpoints:

1) Typical case: Client and server

  • Between a client (e.g., web browser, mobile app) and a server (e.g., website, API).

  • Example: When you visit https://example.com, your browser (client) performs a TLS handshake with example.com's server to encrypt all traffic.

2) Other scenarios

  • Server-to-server communication (e.g., microservices, API gateways).

  • Peer-to-peer (P2P) applications where both sides authenticate (less common but possible with mutual TLS/mTLS).

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Last updated 5 days ago