This course, Network security, which assumes you have a substantial knowledge of computing, helps to explain the intricacies of the continually changing area of network security by studying the main issues involved in achieving a reasonable degree of resilience against attacks.

Course learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

• Identify some of the factors driving the need for network security
• Identify and classify particular examples of attacks
• Define the terms vulnerability, threat and attack
• Identify physical points of vulnerability in simple networks
• Compare and contrast symmetric and asymmetric encryption systems and their vulnerability to attack, and explain the characteristics of hybrid systems.