Introduction to Cybersecurity

Title: Introduction to Cybersecurity

Author for citation: Barbara Endicott-Popovsky, University of Washington

License for content: Unknown

Publication date: 2023

This is a University of Washington-created course that is released on the edX platform. The self-paced six-week course is designed to help learners "gain an overview of the cybersecurity landscape as well as national (USA) and international perspectives on the field." The course is free to take, with a Verified Certificate of completion available for $199 (free audit track ends July 24). The course requires on average two to five hours a week of effort.

The edX course description:

"This course serves as an introduction to the exciting field of cybersecurity.

As our daily lives become more and more dependent on Internet-based tools and services, and as those platforms accumulate more of our most sensitive data, the demand grows for experts in the field of cybersecurity.

In this course, you will gain an overview of the cybersecurity landscape as well as national (USA) and international perspectives on the field. We will cover the legal environment that impacts cybersecurity as well as predominant threat actors."

"By the end of this course, you will be able to

• Define and use key terms and concepts in the field of cybersecurity;
• Identify and distinguish threat actors and their motivations;
• Match appropriate types of controls to the actions of different threat actors;
• Describe the differences and interactions among international agencies related to cybersecurity;
• Describe at least two potential legal challenges to cybersecurity in your country."

About the authors

The edX instructor is Barbara Endicott-Popovsky of the University of Washington. She "is the director of the Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity. She also teaches cybersecurity in several University of Washington programs. Endicott-Popovsky is a member of several national committees shaping cybersecurity education. She earned her doctoral degree from the Center for Secure and Dependable Systems in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Idaho."

General layout and contents of the course

A pre-enrollment syllabus is not available, and the general course layout is not clear without enrolling.

The course

: The course can be found on the edX site, under the Computer Science category. It began in the spring of 2023, and the free audit track ends July 24, 2023.