🛡️ Blue Team Ethical Hacking – Course Outline

Level: Intermediate to Advanced
Target Audience:

• SOC Analysts
• IT Administrators
• Security Analysts
• Network Engineers
• Cybersecurity Students

Duration: 4–6 Weeks (or 40–60 Hours Intensive Bootcamp)
Delivery Mode: Classroom / Virtual Lab / Hybrid

🎯 Course Objective

To equip participants with the skills to detect, analyze, prevent, and respond to cyber threats using defensive security techniques, monitoring tools, and incident response frameworks.

📘 Module 1: Foundations of Blue Team & Defensive Security

Topics Covered:

• Blue Team vs Red Team vs Purple Team
• Cybersecurity threat landscape
• CIA Triad (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability)
• Security operations lifecycle
• Overview of SOC (Security Operations Center)

Learning Outcomes:

Participants will:

• Understand defensive security roles
• Identify modern cyber threats
• Explain SOC workflows

🌐 Module 2: Network Security & Monitoring

Topics Covered:

• Network architecture basics
• Firewalls & IDS/IPS
• Network traffic analysis
• Packet inspection fundamentals
• Log collection and analysis

Tools Introduced:

• Wireshark
• Suricata / Snort
• Zeek

Learning Outcomes:

Participants will:

• Monitor network traffic
• Identify suspicious activity
• Configure basic IDS rules

🖥️ Module 3: Endpoint Security & Hardening

Topics Covered:

• Operating system hardening (Windows/Linux)
• Patch management
• Antivirus & EDR systems
• Group Policy security settings
• File integrity monitoring

Tools Introduced:

• Microsoft Defender
• Wazuh
• OSSEC

Learning Outcomes:

Participants will:

• Secure endpoints
• Implement baseline hardening
• Monitor endpoint activity

🔍 Module 4: Log Analysis & SIEM

Topics Covered:

• Log sources (system, firewall, application)
• Log correlation
• SIEM architecture
• Creating detection rules
• Alert tuning and false positive reduction

Tools Introduced:

• Splunk
• ELK Stack (Elastic, Logstash, Kibana)
• QRadar (overview)

Learning Outcomes:

Participants will:

• Analyze security logs
• Build detection queries
• Investigate alerts efficiently

🚨 Module 5: Incident Response & Threat Hunting

Topics Covered:

• Incident Response lifecycle (Preparation → Lessons Learned)
• Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
• Threat intelligence integration
• Malware basics
• Digital forensics fundamentals

Practical Exercises:

• Investigate simulated phishing attack
• Analyze ransomware indicators
• Perform memory artifact review (basic)

Learning Outcomes:

Participants will:

• Respond to security incidents
• Conduct initial threat analysis
• Document incident reports

🛠️ Module 6: Vulnerability Management

Topics Covered:

• Vulnerability scanning principles
• Risk scoring (CVSS)
• Patch prioritization
• Configuration weaknesses
• Reporting to management

Tools Introduced:

• Nessus
• OpenVAS
• Nmap (defensive perspective)

Learning Outcomes:

Participants will:

• Conduct vulnerability scans
• Interpret scan results
• Recommend remediation strategies

🔐 Module 7: Security Policies & Compliance

Topics Covered:

• Security frameworks (NIST, ISO 27001 overview)
• Security policy development
• Risk management frameworks
• Compliance auditing basics
• Security awareness training

Learning Outcomes:

Participants will:

• Align technical controls with policy
• Assist in compliance audits
• Develop basic security documentation

🧠 Module 8: Advanced Defense & Automation

Topics Covered:

• Security Orchestration (SOAR concepts)
• MITRE ATT&CK framework
• Behavioral analytics
• Automation in detection
• Threat modeling basics

Learning Outcomes:

Participants will:

• Map attacks to MITRE framework
• Automate detection tasks
• Improve proactive defense strategies

🧪 Capstone Project (Hands-On)

Participants must:

• Investigate a simulated cyberattack
• Analyze logs and identify attack vector
• Write incident response report
• Recommend security improvements

📝 Assessment & Certification

Assessment Includes:

• 40–60 Multiple Choice Questions
• Practical lab-based investigation
• Log analysis challenge
• Final capstone defense presentation

Certification:

Certified Blue Team Analyst (CBTA) – Internal/Institutional Certification

📊 Skills Participants Gain

✔ Log Analysis
✔ Incident Response
✔ Network Monitoring
✔ Vulnerability Management
✔ Threat Hunting
✔ Defensive Automation
✔ SOC Workflow