Cyber Operations (Selection) Course Summary

Welcome to the online course for the Cyber Ops (Selection) program, a part of MIT Beaver Works Summer Institute. This Edly course is one of the prerequisites required to apply for the on-campus Cyber Ops (Selection) program in the summer. Cyber Operations is highly-competitive and prestigious. It is both a technical and a leadership course and driven by team-based activities. The online curriculum presented here is designed to prepare students for the 4-week summer course. It will contain foundational concepts that will be expanded upon later on. This is a technically-dense survey course and not to be taken lightly. The Selection course utilizes open-source vendor-driven content. Content here would typically be covered in lower-undergraduate courses across various CS/IT/ECE baccalaureate programs and provides an avenue for students to think about different majors of study. Students may be tested on this material for Training Day 1 of Cyber Ops (Advanced). Time management is key to success during Cyber Ops (Selection) Course. Additionally, students will be assessed routinely, qualitatively, and quantitatively as part of the selection process. Phase 0 is a requirement for a passing grade in the Advanced Course. Phase 0 officially concludes during first couple days of the live/remote course. Important Note: The Beaver Works Summer Institute program requires that you complete the following 3x online courses before we can consider your application for Class 2023-1 (Summer):

• BWSI Python Core 2023
• BWSI Git Version Control 2023
• Cyber Ops (Selection) [this course]

The course will be executed using a combination of online readings and videos that cover general fundamental topics. The content represents the bulk of Phase 0 Network Operations (NETOPS) Fundamentals which is an survey & merger of both Basic Computing Hardware and Network Operations). Topics that will be covered in this course include:

• Introduction to Digital Systems
• System Administration
• Network Administration
• Programming
• Cryptography

Upon notification of acceptance, the applicant is required to complete:

• Endgame Puzzle
• Phase 0 Essays (this is a different requirement from the BWSI Application Essays)

Advanced Course Disclaimers:

1. Students are required to have computing hardware capable of running virtual machines in any of the following applications: VMware, Virtual Box, Hyper-V, Parallels, or UTM.
2. Students are expected to handle malware artifacts inside virtual environments.