Observations of Instructor Led Training with Real Hardware

TechNow has heard many students talk about virtualized/remote training that TechNow Does Not Do.  While training our most recent offering of PA-215: Palo Alto Networks Firewall Essentials FastTrack a student told his story of how he endend up in our course.  His story we have heard for other technologies like Cisco, VMware, BlueCoat and other products.

A large percentage of training is moving to the virtualized/remote lab environments.  Students are asked to use some variant of remote access software and remote into the training company's lab environment. Our student in our Palo Alto Networks Firewall course informed us that he went to a very costly offering of that course from the vendor and was not able to perform any labs.  There were either network connectivity issues, or issues with the remote access software, or other problems.  The whole training experience was very frustrating and not productive.

We keep our labs open to students if they would like after hours, or before hours access.  Repeatedly going through a lab engrains that knowledge for later recall.  Touching hardware is so critical in understanding the problems that arise when a cable comes loose, or a cable gets plugged in the wrong port.  There are other scenarios such as just pulling the power cable, or turning off a power strip, or accidently overwriting a configuration.  These disaster scenarious requires hands-on physical access to hardware.  Preventing and recovering from disasters is what it's all about, and that requires hands-on, instructor led, real hardware.

TN-999: Reverse Engineering Malware Course

Course Overview:

This course is designed for professionals that are expected to do malware analysis. A skills focus enables the student to better absorb the subject matter and perform successfully on the job.   This is not death by power point. The course is aligned with information assurance operators and executing hands-on labs. Lecture and labs walk the student through the knowledge required to truly understand the mechanics Reverse Engineering Malware.

Attendees to TN-999: Reverse Engineering Malware will receive TechNow approved course materials and expert instruction.

Date/Locations:

No Events

Duration: 5 days

Course Objectives:

  • Toolkit and Lab Assembly
  • Malware Code and Behavioral Analysis Fundamentals
  • Malicious Static and Dynamic Code Analysis
  • Collecting/Probing System and Network Activities
  • Analysis of Malicious Document Files
  • Analyzing Protected Executables
  • Analyzing Web-Based Malware
  • DLL Construction and API Hooking
  • Common Windows Malware Characteristics in x86 Assembly
  • Unpacking Protected Malware
  • In-Depth Analysis of Malicious Browser Scripts, Flash Programs and Office
  • In-Depth Analysis of Malicious Executables
  • Windows x86 Assembly Code Concepts for Revers-Engineering Memory Forensics for Rootkit Analysis

Prerequisites:

  • Strong understanding of core systems and network concepts
  • Exposure to programming and assembly concepts
  • Comfortable with command line access

Comments

Latest comments from students

User: marcus.osullivan

Instructor comments: Good stuff. I like the beginning half where there was help from an additional instructor to facilitate fixing computer errors that inevitably popped up.

Facilities comments: The baby deer were neat! I like the resort.

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PA-243: Palo Alto Networks Firewall Debug and Troubleshoot (EDU-311)

  

 

Course Overview: PA-243: Palo Alto Networks Firewall Debug and Troubleshoot is a three-day course on how to troubleshoot the full line of Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls. Students will receive hands-on experience troubleshooting the security, networking, threat prevention, logging, and reporting features of the Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS® operating system. Upon completion of this class, students will have an in-depth knowledge of how to troubleshoot visibility and control over applications, users, and content. This is not a virtualized theoretical course.  This is hands-on, real world instruction, directly relevant to the DoD and Commercial implementations of Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls.

Each student is issued a physical Palo Alto firewall and a Cisco layer 3 switch at their desk.  Real hardware per student for real experience and real skill development.  TechNow provides a very comprehensive client infrastructure that includes Windows, Linux, and multiple packet sniffer agents.

The instructor for this course has been a lead in Unix kernel development to implement firewall and intrusion detection technologies. Additionally, the instructor has taught several security appliance products and carries several SANS, ISC2, ISACA, Cisco, Unix, and Windows certifications.

Attendees to the PA-243: Palo Alto Networks Firewall Debug and Troubleshoot (EDU-311) Training Course will receive TechNow approved course materials and expert instruction.

Dates/Locations:

No Events

Duration: 3 days

Course Objectives:   Students attending this foundational-level training course will gain an in-depth knowledge of how to configure and manage their Palo Alto Networks firewall, including hands-on experience in configuring the security, networking, threat prevention, logging, and reporting features of the Palo Alto Networks Operating System (PAN-OS).

Day 1

  • Module 0 – Introduction & Overview
  • Module 1: Troubleshooting
    • Methodology
  • Module 2: Platform
    • Comparisons When
    • Troubleshooting
  • Module 3: Flow Logic
  • Module 4: Administration
    • Troubleshooting

 

 

Day 2

  • Mod 5: Layer 3
    • Troubleshooting
  • Mod 6: Policy
    • Troubleshooting
  • Mod 7: User-ID™
    • Troubleshooting

Day 3

  • Mod 8: VPN
    • Troubleshooting
  • Mod 9: GlobalProtect™
    • Troubleshooting
  • Mod 10: Performance
    • Troubleshooting

 

Prerequisites:

This course is in no way associated with Palo Alto Networks, Inc.

Comments

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PA-242: Palo Alto Networks Firewall Manage Cyberthreats (EDU-231)

  

 

Course Overview:  PA-242: Palo Alto Networks Firewall Manage Cyberthreats (EDU-231) Training Class is a two-day course that teaches students strategies in defense against cyberthreats.  Successful completion of this course enables administrators to better understand the threat landscape.  This is not a virtualized theoretical course.  This is hands-on, real world instruction, directly relevant to the DoD and Commercial implementations of Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls.

Each student is issued a physical Palo Alto firewall and a Cisco layer 3 switch at their desk.  Real hardware per student for real experience and real skill development.  TechNow provides a very comprehensive client infrastructure that includes Windows, Linux, and multiple packet sniffer agents.

The instructor for this course has been a lead in Unix kernel development to implement firewall and intrusion detection technologies.  Additionally, the instructor has taught several security appliance products and carries several SANS, ISC2, ISACA, Cisco, Unix, and Windows certifications.

Attendees to the PA-242: Palo Alto Networks Firewall Manaage Cyberthreats  (EDU-231) Training Course will receive TechNow approved course materials and expert instruction.

Dates/Locations:

No Events

Duration: 2 days

Course Objectives:   Students attending this training course will gain an understanding of cyberthreats and their characteristics.  Students will learn how to manage cyberthreats using security policies, profiles, and signatures to protect their network against emerging threats.

Day 1

  • Mod 1: Threat Landscape
    • Advanced Persistent
    • Threats
    • Data Breaches and Tactics
    • Threat Management
    • Strategies
  • Mod 2: Integrated
    • Approach to Threat
    • Protection
    • Integrated Approach to
    • Protection
    • Next-Generation Firewall
    • Advanced Endpoint
    • Protection
  • Mod 3: Network Visibility
    • Zero Trust Model
    • SSL Decryption
    • Decryption Policy
  • Mod 4: Reducing the Attack
    • Surf
    • ection

 

Day 2

  • Mod 5: Handling Known
    • Threats
    • WildFire Analysis
    • Security Profiles
  • Mod 6: Handling Unknown
    • Traffic and Zero-Day Exploits
    • WildFire
    • Researching Threat Events
    • Identifying Unknown
    • Applications
  • Mod 7: Investigating
    • Breaches
    • Identify IOCs Using
    • App-Scope
    • Log Correlation
    • Finding Infected Host
  • Mod 8: Using Custom
    • Signatures
    • Creating Custom App-IDs
    • Threat Signatures

A

Prerequisites:

  • Students must complete the PA-213: Install, Configure, and Manage course
  • Understanding of network concepts, including routing, switching, and IP addressing
  • In-depth knowledge of port-based security and security technologies such as IPS, proxy, and content filtering

This course is in no way associated with Palo Alto Networks, Inc.

Comments

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