SEC530: Defensible Security Architecture and Engineering – Zero Trust

Why take this course?

One of the major reasons on why I chose to take SEC530 is due to the class syllabus. A big item that stood out to me was learning more about implementing Zero Trust and an Insider Threat program. The course has a whole day dedicated to just those topics alone. Being in a Security Engineering role, this course is a great way to understand how to assess your current defenses within your organization. But, also allows you to plan ahead for future controls that may need to be built out over time.

If you’ve got an extensive amount of experience already working within the cyber security world. Then, some of the defenses may be items that you have already worked on or have some exposure on. For me personally, a lot of the materials from Day 1-3 were concepts and practical work that I have already experienced. However, Day 4-5 were excellent in learning new topics/ideas that will at least for me lead to fun future projects.

I took the vLive course option, which in my case was also taking place in person. So, it was a hybrid class with students in person, as well as students (such as me) taking it remotely for the week.

Day 1

The start to the course will go over many basic concepts related to best practices for physical and network security. You’ll get to play with the MITRE Framework, and understand the cyber kill chain. There is a good chunk of time dedicated to learning about various types of NetFlow data (on prem networking devices, cloud, endpoint). It’s a great start to the course to warm you up to the good stuff!

Day 2