Network Security
Master network protocols, firewalls, IDS/IPS, packet analysis, and network architecture security.
10 Topics
Key concepts
3 Levels
Beginner to Advanced
3 Tools
Curated for this track
8 Questions
Test yourself
About this track
Understand the wire before you try to defend it.
Everything else in security sits on top of the network. This track builds the mental model that makes the rest of the field legible: how packets are addressed and routed, where trust boundaries actually sit, and what a compromise looks like when you only have traffic to go on.
The work is hands-on with a packet capture open. You will learn to read a three-way handshake at a glance, spot a DNS tunnel in a sea of ordinary lookups, and understand why segmentation does more for a breach's blast radius than any single appliance.
It pairs naturally with the Blue Team track: network fundamentals are what let detection engineering produce rules that fire on real behaviour rather than on noise.
Key topics
10 topics grouped into three modules, in the order you should meet them.
- 01
Protocol foundations
4 topics- 1.
TCP/IP Fundamentals
Addressing, routing, and the handshake — the substrate every other topic here assumes.
- 2.
Firewalls & ACLs
Stateful versus stateless filtering, and why rule order decides what actually gets blocked.
- 3.
IDS/IPS Systems
Signature and anomaly detection, plus the tuning work that keeps alerts actionable.
- 4.
VPN Technologies
IPsec and WireGuard, split tunnelling, and the trust assumptions each design bakes in.
- 1.
- 02
Defensive controls
4 topics- 5.
Network Monitoring
Flow data, span ports, and choosing what to keep when you cannot keep everything.
- 6.
Packet Analysis
Wireshark as an investigative instrument — filters, follow-stream, and protocol dissection.
- 7.
DNS Security
Poisoning, tunnelling, and exfiltration hiding inside the one protocol nobody blocks.
- 8.
Wireless Security
WPA2 and WPA3 handshakes, rogue access points, and why the perimeter leaks through the air.
- 5.
- 03
Architecture & hunting
2 topics- 9.
Network Segmentation
VLANs and microsegmentation as the single most effective limit on lateral movement.
- 10.
Zero Trust Architecture
Replacing implicit network trust with per-request verification of identity and device posture.
- 9.
What you'll be able to do
- Read a packet capture confidently and reconstruct what happened on the wire
- Design and justify a segmentation model for a realistic corporate network
- Configure and tune IDS/IPS rules that fire on behaviour rather than on strings
- Recognise the traffic signatures of spoofing, poisoning, and tunnelling attacks