Network Hacking and Protection
Micro-credential
September – December 2026
ICT infrastructure is at the heart of both critical and non-critical functionality which as a society we have come to rely upon. With the ongoing digitization (e.g. smart appliances, smart phones, smart homes, smart cities, smart energy grids, cloudsystems) it is essential that the security of this infrastructure is given proper attention.
The goal of this course is to get to know by which methods cyber-attackers will typically attempt to infiltrate or disturb proper functionality of these systems, and – if they gain entry – how they will attempt to gain control over lateral systems and potentially conceal their steps. Armed with this knowledge, setting up proper multilayered network defences against such attacks will be explained.
This is complementary to courses such as Information Security, which focuses specifically on cryptography and implementations of it at a high level of abstraction; and Software Hacking and Protection, where the behaviour of the system is (either partially or fully) unknown by an attacker, the goal of an attacker is to understand or manipulate the behaviour of this system.
The target audience for this course is ICT-knowledgeable / ICT-curious people with a background in computer science through education or experience. The course explains a variety of stages used by cybercriminals to gain entry into industrial networks, and shows the tools and tricks of the trade that are being used. No new hacks are being developed (so programming skills are seldom used), but one has to be decent with command-line manipulation and scripting, to allow interpreting and employing given tools. The course assumes no prior hacking knowledge.
Participants are expected to:
- Have programming skills in C and C++, Python.
- Have knowledge of computer architecture, of computer networking fundamentals and of operating system internals.
- Have basic Linux (i.e. Bash) knowledge.
- Have basic knowledge of databases.
A personal laptop is required (which must be capable of running an x64 virtual machine). The participant must have administrative rights to the laptop as additional (free) software will need to be installed.
Micro-credentials are small courses of academic level that focus on specific competencies. They often consist of one or several subjects which are also taught in an university bachelor's or master's degree.
If you pass the micro-credential, you will receive a certificate as proof that you have completed the acquired competencies. So you also acquire real official credits who are recognized in your further career, also internationally. They can also lead to exemptions for other courses, also at other institutions and organizations.
You will receive a certificate of the micro-credential + credit certificate when you pass the corresponding exam (6 ECTS points).
Examination method:
- Exam: written examination with open and closed questions on theory, with closed-book.
- During semester: graded lab sessions (written reports), graded on participation and project.
- The final score is the average score of the two parts (50% on permanent evaluation, 50% on periodic exam).
- Lack of participation in permanent evaluation for no valid reason results in a zero for that part.
- In the case of group assignments, the students in a group get the same score by default. Only when there is a clear difference in contribution, the students will be given different scores.
- The student must pass (>=10/20) both parts to pass the whole course. If they fail for one part while still scoring >=10/20 on average, the final score becomes 9/20.
- Students who eschew one or more parts of the assessment can no longer obtain a pass mark for the course unit. Should the final mark be higher than 7/20, it will be reduced to the highest non-tolerable mark (i.e. 7/20).
Lecturer
Prof. Bruno Volckaert, Department of Information Technology, Ghent UniversityContents
- Network protections (firewalls, DDoS protection services)
- Recon (OSINT, vulnerability / network scanning, web app scanning) to identify and enumerate targets
- Penetration testing (MetaSploit a.o.)
- Remote privilege escalation and client-side attacks
- Lateral network movement
- Intrusion Detection (fingerprinting and heuristics)
- Physical access attacks (drives / devices)
- Social engineering attacks (doppelganger domains, phishing)
- Wireless network takeovers
- Jump-servers, Privileged Access Workstations
- Digital forensics: examining digital devices after a security incident
- Threat modelling (risk factors in network security: where to place key infrastructure / DMZ)
- Secure IoT design - SCALA - other types of networks
- Secure virtualization options: Containers, microVMs, sandboxing, etc.
- Zero trust systems (enclaves, confidential containers, use of rented infrastructure for sensitive payloads, etc.)
- Incident management: practical key / secret management (e.g. in Kubernetes), back-up infrastructure, fault tolerance, administrative access doors
Final competences
- Understand and be able to use the terminology dealing with offensive and defensive network security aspects (red team, blue team, purple team).
- Deep understanding of reconnaissance techniques (OSINT, vulnerability scanning, etc.).
- The ability to conduct penetration tests on networked applications and present findings in a professional manner.
- Likewise the ability to detect unsolicited penetration tests being performed on self-governed infrastructure.
- Deep understanding of vulnerabilities in networked software, analysis of their impact, and construction of countermeasures to prevent them from being abused.
- Deep understanding of techniques to secure virtualised orchestrated workloads.
- Knowledge of zero trust system principles.
- The ability to design and set up a secured company network which includes public facing services and conversely the ability to penetrate an insecure network.
- The ability to perform digital forensics on a system that was subject of a security breach.
- Communicating and presenting domain-specific knowledge in a correct and clear manner, with the appropriate language skills, incl. the use of correct terminology.
Practical info
Fee
The participation fee is 393 euro.
Click here for more information about the billing process and the payment request.
A payment request is always addressed to the student.
If your company or employer wants to pay your tuition fee they can do so by using the reference mentioned on the payment request.
You can also make the payment yourself and ask for a proof of payment by sending an email to studiegeld@ugent.be.
This proof of payment can then be used as an expense report.
FYI: there is no VAT on the tuition fee. Therefore it is unnecessary to mention the name and VAT number of the company on the payment request.
SME e-wallet (KMO-portefeuille)
Ghent University accepts payments via the SME e-wallet.Go to www.vlaio.be/en/subsidies/sme-e-wallet and use authorization code DV.O103193.
Opleidingsverlof (VOV)
This training is recognized in the context of VOV (ODB-P00004). For each credit point you are entitled to 4 hours of VOV.This course (6 ECTS points) covers in total 24 hours of VOV (participation in the assignments and the exam is mandatory).
The registration certificate for VOV can be found at your personal page in OASIS (student administration platform).
You can download this yourself via OASIS. For administrative reasons, it's helpful to write the registration number ODB-P00004 on the certificate yourself.
Certification of exam participation is done automatically.
Info form
Fill out the form below and we’ll notify you as soon as registration opens.Info on time and location will be announced as soon as it becomes available.
The theory is recorded and shared on Panopto after each lesson. There is no live streaming.
The training is supported by the Ufora learning platform, which contains, among other things, the course material.
Laptop
A personal laptop is required (which must be capable of running an x64 virtual machine).
Organisation
Universiteit Gent
UGent Academie voor Ingenieurs
Technologiepark 60
9052 Zwijnaarde
Tel.: +32 9 264 55 82
ugain@UGent.be