The Forge · engineering, computing & technology
Cybersecurity & Networks
How data moves, how it gets attacked, and the discipline of defending it.
Packets, addresses, and routes — the whole path from your keyboard to a server and back.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~14 hours
Unit I — Messages in Pieces
Packets, and why data travels in pieces · IP addresses · Routers and hops
Unit II — Names and Numbers
DNS: names to numbers · Domains and registrars · What a URL really says
Unit III — Reliability and Rules
TCP: arriving whole and in order · Ports and protocols · HTTP and HTTPS
The layered model made concrete — subnets, switching, routing, and reading a packet capture.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~36 hours
Unit I — Layers
The layered model and why it exists · Ethernet and MAC addresses · Switches vs. routers
Unit II — Addressing
IPv4 and subnetting · NAT · IPv6
Unit III — Routing and Transport
Routing tables · BGP in outline · TCP flow and congestion control · UDP and when to prefer it
Unit IV — In the Wire
Reading a packet capture · Latency, jitter, and loss · Diagnosing a slow connection
The attacker's playbook and the defender's discipline — from phishing to patched-and-monitored.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~20 hours
Unit I — Thinking Like an Attacker
Threat models · Social engineering and phishing · The attack surface of an ordinary life
Unit II — The Defenses
Passwords, hashing, and password managers · Two-factor authentication · Updates and least privilege
Unit III — When It Goes Wrong
Recognizing a compromise · Incident response basics · Backups that actually restore
Ciphers, keys, and certificates — the mathematics that lets strangers keep secrets in public.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~32 hours
Unit I — Secrecy
Classical ciphers and how they fell · Symmetric encryption: AES · Modes of operation
Unit II — Keys in Public
The key-exchange problem · Diffie–Hellman · RSA and elliptic curves
Unit III — Integrity and Identity
Hash functions · Digital signatures · Certificates and the chain of trust
Unit IV — Protocols
TLS end to end · Where implementations fail · The post-quantum outlook
Finding the holes before someone else does — recon, exploitation, and the report that fixes it.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~40 hours
Unit I — Rules of Engagement
Legal scope and authorization · The penetration-test lifecycle · Documentation from day one
Unit II — Reconnaissance
Passive and active recon · Scanning and enumeration · Mapping the target
Unit III — Exploitation
Common vulnerability classes · Web attacks: injection and cross-site scripting · Privilege escalation
Unit IV — The Deliverable
Post-exploitation and cleanup · Risk ratings · Writing the report that gets things fixed