A great course overall. Tero is one of the best teachers I've had and the enthusiasm he has for the subject is very apparent.

My lack of previous knowledge wasn't an issue, the lectures were interesting and easy to understand starting from the basics.
Hands on excercises supported learning and were fun to do, although at times they required more time to complete than I anticipated. A lot of interesting tools and resources were introduced, some of which I can see myself potentially using after the course.
I found the course useful and valuable and I feel like I gained a lot from it.
The presentations were interesting and preferable to an exam.
It was encouraging that the teacher was willing to hear about personal issues related to presenting and adjustments could be made.

The course was very enjoyable and I would recommend it to anyone interested.
Thank you.

— Aarni, 2022-03-15

I learned so much new concepts like cyber kill chain and att&ck matrix that are useful in guiding one's thought process to the adversarial nature of cyber security. We got introduced to free and useful tools (e.g. otw, metasploitable2, linux, webgoat, wireshark…) to learn cyber security hands-on. Most of the tools I used in this course were new to me (only exception was Linux that I've used little bit in an another course). It was very good that it was emphasized how important it is to document homework while doing the exercises because it teaches us to be methodological in problem solving and works toward building a portfolio. It was a good thing that the teacher asked everyone to pitch in when we went through the homework because it increased engagement. I felt that there was a good and encouraging atmosphere in the course. I've never liked giving presentations but I cannot count it as a disadvantage for this course because it was very intresting to listen to other students' presentations. I especially liked the presentations that had live demonstrations because it made me feel encouraged to try them myself and I don't feel that anxious using them anymore. I'm mainly focused to the software engineering programme (ohjelmistotuotanto) in HH and I think I have not gotten enough security education during coding/programming courses, which is why I would recommend more software engineering students should take this course. I am guessing most fellow students were from ICT infrastructure programme (?). Thank you for the course Tero!

— Melissa, 2022-03-15

I really enjoyed this course and all the information was very useful especially for me who has no background knowledge on this subject. As a beginner I am happy to be able to take this course. It's fun although some of the exercises are a bit difficult for me. All the presentations that have been presented by the participants of this course are very useful, but this is something new for me and I am glad to know all the information, very informative.
Thank you!

— Yennie, 2022-03-15

It was a really great course. I knew very, very little when first coming in and I think I learned a lot. It was also very helpful to get to do hands on work and I hope you do teach more courses in English because I'd love to take them. It's clear you know these subjects well and I think whenever someone had a question, there wasn't a topic you couldn't talk on or answer.

It as a little intense on the homework sometimes, and I think I found it easiest when in class we did an exercise and became familiar with the tool we were using and then had the homework assignment build on it.

That said, you were very upfront at the beginning about how much work this would take and about the expectations and requirements, so I wasn't blindsided by the amount of homework and it didn't feel unfair. Just, for me personally, sometimes it got frustrating when I felt lost but wanted to figure it out on my own or when my work schedule sometimes made things difficult. The content of the homework was great, though, and it didn't feel like homework for homework's sake, or like an activity to keep us busy and say we've done something. Everything had a real-world application which you could see.

(Sidenote, I really liked the Darknet Diaries podcast and never would've found it without this course and having it for homework! So many interesting topics covered there.)

I really like the idea of having these presentations as well. I learned a lot from fellow classmates and their interests, more than if we had sat down and taken a test. It was so much more engaging and fun to see what pulled everyone's interests, and most presentations were interesting to watch. I do wish the presentations were collected somewhere so we could look at them again afterward, especially some like Liu's which seems like a helpful map and like something I'd like to get my hands on.

Finally, I want to thank you for your encouragement and kindness. It's difficult to open up to teachers about personal issues, and I will always be grateful that you responded so well to mine and that we were able to meet halfway and find a solution that worked out okay in the end when it came to my own presentation. And getting the feedback on it was really helpful, it's great any time you can get straightforward feedback and a perspective outside of yourself.

So, yeah! Great course, I learned a lot, and I wish the course continued with sessions after March! And, if you do end up teaching more courses in English, I will definitely be signing up.

5/5

— Rachel Häll, 2022-03-15

Interesting, almost sandbox-like course. Not many (technical)skills needed to take part and complete homework, everything can be learned each week. Linux and network knowledge is useful, though. Homework is also manageable, though reports may be time-consuming, depending on how much you do and learn.

Topics learned are very relevant in modern info sec, many concepts we went through during class I've seen pop up again and again in different info sec media. Overall a useful course, some interest and curiousity in data sec definitely go a long way here.

— Tommi, 2022-03-15

Course gets a 5/5 from me.

Even though the course covered some topics I was already fairly familiar with, it remained interesting and motivated me to dig deeper. At no point did the course feel like I was just "completing" the course instead of actually learning something. Any student will know that the teacher has succeeded when that is the case.

To improve the course I would add still more references for further study. Perhaps also an example of what the more advanced penetration course is like to get a flavour for whether that could be next.

I enjoyed the course and would recommend it to others who are genuinely interested in security.

— Pieter, 2022-03-15

1) Free form feedback as a comment on this page

The topic was quite new to me. I have not thought about Data Security in the past much more than using good passwords, not using the same passwords twice, and installing latest updates, firewall, antivirus etc. This combined with your Linux-servers course gave me a good introduction to Linux use as well, and Im not going back to windows on my laptop.

Basically everything we did in this course, I did it for the first time. Webgoat was interesting, using metasploitable was interesting. I've started to listen to DarkNet Diaries which are really interesting.

Quite a lot of theory and work in this course, but that is the way to learn about data security.

You can write what ever you want. No need to repeat the questions, but they are here to get you started.

I would recommend this course to my fellow students absolutely.

— Jyri, 2022-03-15

Thank you Tero!
I learned a lot of new stuff in this course which i will of course benefit from as background knowledge. I had the chance to apply data security theroy to the practice as we build the environment for this during the course/homework.
Even though i won't work in Data Security in the future i think i can utilize the gained knowledge somehow during my work in a software development company. The homework widened my knowledge and awareness of multiple kinds of risks.
Also the presentations were on a great level for everyone who is rather new to the topic- the class came up with great ideas and i enjoyed all the different approaches as Tero let us kind off free with both topic and presentation style.
I enjoyed the course a lot but I would recommend to split it into 2 slots a week! Almost 6 hours on the same (demanding) subject were sometimes challenging to follow. But other than that - it was a great experience and a total different teaching style to what I am used to as a German exchange student. I would recommend the course to everyone even slightly interested in Computers/Developing/Security.

— Melina Hikisch, 2022-03-15

So I like this course a lot and it was really to begin learning data security with it because i was really interested in this field, but I didn't know how to begin to study it, but with this course I have received a lot of knowledge and opportunity for further developing in this way
However, There was only one disadvantage as more - a lecture as a whole. Because it longs about 5-6 hours, At the end it is really hard to follow up and u r getting really tired, so as for me I would divide one big lecture on 2 regular size lectures, and i guess it will be more efficient for the students and teacher

— Maxim Obedkov, 2022-03-15

Super interesting and awesome course on Data Security, thank you very much Tero. I highly recommend it to anybody who is interested in anything security related.

https://security.unit37.org/

H1 --> https://security.unit37.org/dsp1.html

H2 --> https://security.unit37.org/dsp2.html

H3 --> https://security.unit37.org/dsp3.html

H4 --> https://security.unit37.org/dsp4.html

H5 --> https://security.unit37.org/dsp5.html

H6 --> https://security.unit37.org/dsp6.html

— Marc Helbling, 2022-03-10