Meet your course guide, Cory Doctorow, and start to explore the security threat landscape. Learn basic techniques for protecting your computers and your online information.

Learn about different kinds of threat, the vulnerabilities that they exploit and some countermeasures that can be put in place to guard against them.

Most of us rely on the internet for everyday tasks such as shopping, working, banking and social networking but don't stop to think about the security issues that might be involved.

Many security threats depend on the attackers being able to impersonate us online. Passwords are the main way we authenticate ourselves to the services we use, therefore you’ll learn ways of improving the security of passwords.

Just about every website you sign up to requires a password. What strategies do you use when choosing passwords?

Two-factor authentication can also help with your security. How does it work and how do you implement it on your accounts?

Find out about different types of malware, how they developed and what damage they can do. Discover some of the terms used to describe malware.

Learn about malware, phishing and click fraud. Confess to your bad habits and make a plan to change.

How do can you protect yourself from malware? Learn about antivirus software, sandboxes and some tips on how to spot phishing emails.

The internet is not a single entity, it is a hierarchy of individual networks connected to one another. Learn how information is moved through it.

How secure is the internet? What can you do to keep your information secure?

For the internet to function, common standards apply to every network. Find out what these are and how they operate.

Cryptography is a specialised area of mathematics concerned with securing information so that it can be transmitted safely even when there is a risk it might be intercepted.

Examine how cryptographic techniques can be used in practice, install encryption software and send an encrypted email.

There are hundreds of different cryptographic schemes, learn about some of the ways they are used.

How can you protect your communication networks from attack? Learn how a firewall can help.

How does Virtual Private Networking work? What is it used for? When would you use one? How secure are they?

You’ve probably seen a movie or TV programme featuring an attack on a computer network. The administrators rush to their keyboards and frantically begin typing – it’s all very exciting – but does this happen in real life?

What do you do when things go wrong? Learn about the laws that protect you and your data, such as the Data Protection Act and the Computing Act, in the UK.

Look at some of the laws in the UK, such as the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Computer Misuse Act 1990, that help to protect us against information security threats.

Learn how to recover from an attack on your information security and what you can do to prevent a similar attack being successful in the future.

Identify and analyse the risks to your own information assets. What information is most valuable? To whom?

Learn what measures you can take to manage the risks to your information assets and to ensure that you stay safe online.

Take stock of what you've learned and how it will affect your security measures and web practices. Take the end of course assessment and find out about the next steps.