Cybersecurity Learning

My hands-on cybersecurity learning journey during my M.Tech in Cyber Security at Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT), Pune.

This repository documents my laboratory work, practical exercises, security concepts, tools, experiments, and technical notes as I progress through cybersecurity.

Topics Covered

• Operating System Security
• Linux Security
• Windows Security
• Access Control
• Authentication & Authorization
• User and Group Management
• File Permissions
• Privilege Management
• Networking & Network Protocols
• Packet Capture & Analysis

Laboratory Work

01. Windows Operating System Security

Hands-on work with Windows 10 covering:

• Windows boot process
• Authentication and authorization
• User and group management
• Administrator and standard-user privileges
• User Account Control (UAC)
• File and folder permissions
• NTFS access control
• CMD and PowerShell
• Security-relevant system analysis

02. Linux Operating System Security

Hands-on work with Kali Linux covering:

• Linux boot sequence
• Users, groups, UID and GID
• File ownership and permissions
• SUID, SGID and Sticky Bit
• Linux capabilities
• sudo, su and privilege management
• Bash and Zsh
• Process and service analysis
• Security-relevant Linux commands
• Network and system analysis

03. Foundations of Systems & Network Security

Hands-on work with Windows 10 covering:

• Network configuration (ipconfig, hostname, getmac)
• ICMP connectivity testing (ping)
• ARP and IP-to-MAC address resolution
• Path tracing and path-quality analysis (tracert, pathping)
• DNS name resolution (nslookup)
• Active connections and listening ports (netstat)
• IPv4 routing tables (route print)
• Mapping observations to RFC/IEEE networking standards
• Security relevance of each diagnostic tool

04. Virtual Network Setup & Packet Sniffing

Hands-on work building and capturing traffic on an isolated Windows–Kali virtual network, covering:

• Designing an isolated VirtualBox Internal Network between two VMs
• Static IPv4 addressing and real-world troubleshooting (APIPA fallback, NetworkManager)
• Generating and capturing controlled ICMP/ARP traffic with Wireshark
• Field-by-field dissection of ARP and ICMP packets
• Correlating command-line evidence with independent packet-level evidence
• TTL-based OS fingerprinting and MAC vendor (OUI) disclosure
• ARP spoofing risk and the security limits of unauthenticated address resolution
• Evidence discipline — stating what each observation proves vs. what it doesn't

Tools & Technologies

• Kali Linux
• Windows 10
• Linux
• Bash
• Zsh
• PowerShell
• CMD
• Wireshark
• Oracle VirtualBox

Repository Structure

cybersecurity-learning/
│
├── 01-windows-security/
│   ├── README.md
│   ├── documentation/
│
├── 02-linux-security/
│   ├── README.md
│   ├── documentation/
│
├── 03-network-security-foundations/
│   ├── README.md
│   ├── documentation/
│
├── 04-virtual-network-packet-sniffing/
│   ├── README.md
│   ├── documentation/
│
└── README.md