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.

RH-295: Linux System Administration II

Course Overview:

Linux System Administration II course is for experienced administrators ready for advanced administration topics. This course provides students with hands-on experience working with more complex and integrated administration concepts, and builds upon the Part 1 course. Students will be instructed in essential  local Red Hat system administration skills including: Logical Volumes, Raid Management, and System Logging, SELinux and Virtual Machines.  The Linux System Administration II course will get you started in understanding network administration topics, including monitoring, routing, Firewall with iptables, and servers such as NFS, SAMBA, DNS, SMTP, HTTP, DHCP, and Kickstart.

Attendees to RH-295: Linux System Administration II will receive TechNow approved course materials and expert instruction.

Dates/Locations:

No Events

Duration: 5 days

Course Objectives:

  • Managing Logical Volumes and RAID
  • Network Routing, Filtering and Monitoring
  • Configuring File Sharing Across Platforms
  • Configuring Internet Services
  • Configuring Security
  • Configuring System Messaging
  • Using Name Services
  • Configuring Name Service Clients
  • Configuring Kickstart
  • Virtualization with KVM
  • Troubleshooting Boot Process

Prerequisites:

Comments

Latest comments from students

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TN-939: Hacker Techniques, Exploits, and Incident Handling Course

Course Overview:

A skills focus enables the student to better absorb the subject matter and perform successfully on the exam.   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 of the attacks and the effectiveness.  Students then gain network experience and use sniffing to help exemplify the benefit of learning wired and wireless security configurations. The course concludes with exercising real attack strategies to demonstrate the techniques acquired throughout the course.

Attendees to TN-939:  Hacker Techniques, Exploits, and Incident Handling will receive TechNow approved course materials and expert instruction.

Date/Locations:

No Events

Duration: 9 days

Course Objectives:

  • Backdoors & Trojan Horses
  • Buffer Overflows
  • Covering Tracks: Networks
  • Covering Tracks: Systems
  • Denial of Service Attacks
  • Exploiting Systems Using Netcat
  • Format String Attacks
  • Incident Handling Overview and Preparation
  • Incident Handling Phase 2: Identification
  • Incident Handling Phase 3: Containment
  • Incident Handling: Recovering and Improving Capabilities
  • IP Address Spoofing
  • Network Sniffing
  • Password Attacks
  • Reconnaissance
  • Rootkits
  • Scanning: Host Discovery
  • Scanning: Network and Application Vulnerability scanning and tools
  • Scanning: Network Devices (Firewall rules determination, fragmentation, and IDS/IPS evasion)
  • Scanning: Service Discovery
  • Session Hijacking, Tools and Defenses
  • Types of Incidents
  • Virtual Machine Attacks
  • Web Application Attacks
  • Worms, Bots & Bot-Nets

Prerequisites:

  • GSEC or equivalent experience
  • UNIX, Windows, Networking, and Security Experience
  • This is a hands-on skill course requiring comfort with command line interaction and network communications

Comments

Latest comments from students

User: m_jurrens

Instructor comments: Both instructors Mr. Askey and Mr. Hackney, were very good. the open learning environment was extremely productive and I felt we all learned far more that we ever would out of a structured rote memorization course.

User: natebonds

Instructor comments: Both Mr. Askey and Hackney were extremely knowledgeable. They were also extremely interested in helping each student learn. I was particularly impressed with the way they tailored the course to optimize our time since we weren't testing. I feel like I know much much more than I did when the class started.

Facilities comments: The facilities were fine. I would have preferred it be closer to Lackland.

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Customized Training

TechNow has 26 years of courseware deveopment with a huge library of course material.  If our standard courses are just not quite right for what you require, we can provide customized training to meet your needs!  We have serviced many request for training that is aligned to customer business operations.  Additionally, our security related courses can provide concise direction on how to build security programs and/or address gaps in your existing security programs.  TechNow strives for 100% customer satisfaction, and customized classes is one method that TechNow uses to achieve that goal.

Together, our Classroom in a Box service and the customized class service can provide highly targeted training to your team at your location.

If you are interested in more information regarding our customized training, contact us at 800-324-2294

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P-325: Python Programming

Course Overview:

This is an introductory course into the Python scripting language.  This class uses a hands-on approach in teaching the Python language.  This course builds the prerequisite skills for TechNow's P-345: Python for Pentration Testers course.  Getting comfortable with Python is important to understanding how Python can be utilitized for offensive measures.

This course is hands-on with the instructor walking the students through many short examples to exemplify an objective.  Dexterity with the language comes through many small code examples to produce the desired result.  Students have fun acquiring points for all the code examples they get correct.  We must be having fun because TechNow is always amazed at how competitive students are in trying to acquire the most points!  

The instructor will focus on the level that each student is currently at, and ensure the student absorbs the subject matter.  Programming is not a daily tasking of administrators or offensive operators and TechNow understands that.  As an instructor led course TechNow is very successful in making Python accessible to those who do not live eat and breath programming.  If a student's ultimate goal is to attend a course like TechNow's P-345: Python for Pentration Testers course, then not being bogged down in the Python language is critical, and this course (P-325: Python Programming) meets that objective.

Recently we have introduced Raspberry Pi's and multiple sensors to the P-325: Python Programming course.  This enables the student to actually see productive results from their coding skills in the physical world!  Some examples that students create programs for are: Motion detectors, distance, temperature, cameras and keypads.

Attendees to P-325: Python Programming will receive TechNow approved course materials and expert instruction.

Dates/Locations:

No Events

Duration: 5 Days

Course Objectives:

  • How Python Runs Programs
  • Introducing Python Object Types
    • Numeric Types
    • Dynamic Typing
  • Variables
  • Regular Expressions
  • Strings
  • Conditionals
    • if Tests and Syntax Rules
  • Lists and Dictionaries
  • Tuples and Files
  • Introducing Python Statements
  • Assignments, Expressions, and Prints
  • while and for Loops
  • Iterations and Comprehensions
  • Documentation
  • Function Basics
  • Built-In Functions
  • Scopes
  • Arguments
  • Modules
  • Module Packages and Importing
  • Classes and OOP
  • Operator Overloading
  • Recursion
  • Exception Coding Details
  • Exception Objects
  • Unicode and Byte Strings
  • Working with Raspberry Pi
    • Writing code for sensors

Prerequisites:

  • Experience with some form of programming is preferred

 

Comments

Latest comments from students

User: slewis8435

Instructor comments: Very good instructor - he was excited about the material, very knowledgeable, and explained things clearly.

Facilities comments: The facilities were fine - plenty of room for each student to set up an extra computer and have room for note taking

User: nathan.karras

Instructor comments: Instructor was extremely knowledgeable in programming and scripting. He encouraged students to explore and ask questions. He would work with individuals to troubleshoot lab problems sets. Would highly recommend as an instructor.

Facilities comments: Room got a little warn. Instructor purchased fans to cool things off for the class. Projector had over scan.

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