Thank you for teaching.
I have learn a lot of the Knowledge cyber security.
And know how to provide it.
I think this was a great course. I know alot about cybersecurity and data protection from before. I woould also like to highlight that the homework startegy is really good as I do learn things while completing it. Encryption was something that i tried the first time and also decryption. Skills I gained are very useful as now i have more stuff to put on my cover letter. Presentation part of the course is really good as you get some questions and feedback enhancing your own skills and developing confidence. Yes I mean feedback is always good because there might be some thing that I missed. For homeworks i think there should be some anonymous system or. i could just not use my name on github. I think because of identity there might some biasness in grading. I really enjoyed the course especially the timings were great too. Well I would maybe improve it by sometime decreasing class time because a full until 1:45 is long. Otherwise i would definetely recommend it.
— Muhammad Moosa Khan, 2026-03-12I definitely learned a lot throughout this course. Before starting, I didn't even know how to install Linux or set up a virtual machine, so the amount of new knowledge I gained is huge. From operating systems to security concepts, everything felt like a completely new world opening up for me.
Because almost everything was new, I ended up doing many things for the first time-whether it was performing even a small SQL injection, experimenting with password-breaking techniques, creating threat models, or using encryption tools. Every task pushed me into unfamiliar but exciting territory.
I think the course was extremely useful. These skills are absolutely relevant in companies today, especially with cybersecurity becoming more important than ever. Understanding how systems can be attacked-and how to defend them-is valuable in almost any technical role.
The presentations were well done and genuinely interesting. I learned something new from almost every one of them because each presenter brought a different perspective. They added a lot of practical value to the course.
The comments and feedback I received were constructive and helpful. Whether it was from classmates or the teacher, the responses to my questions and assignments helped me improve and understand things more clearly.
I really enjoyed the course. It was full of knowledge, hands-on learning, and new experiences. It kept me engaged from start to finish.
Honestly, I feel the course already had everything it needed. I'm not sure what I would change.
Yes, I would absolutely recommend this course. In fact, I already have-I've told my brother and a friend about it because I found it so useful and informative. Anyone interested in cybersecurity, IT, or simply understanding how systems work would benefit from it.
- I learned alot new stuff, which might be important in professional life, I liked the way tero assigned everyone to to present on certain topics because of that I focused on topics very clearly. As beginner, it was overwhelming at first, It was confusing to understand, but I liked the way tero used real sources.
- yeah, I did encrypted message, broke some passwords during a task.
- The skills would be useful in future, if you pursue cybersecurity as profession, even if you don’t, the importance of self awareness and digital attack nowadays are explained very well.
- it would be great, if you explained how to submit tasks very well, and more hands-on practical learning would also the good.
Overall rate I would give is 4 out of 5. a bit more practical learning would be very good.
As a complete beginner in cybersecurity, I learned a lot of new things about interesting topics like breaking hashes, encryption, how to virtualise my computer and use Linux CLI. I particularly enjoyed the part on the darknet and the use of TOR. I think the course provides some basics foundations about security in general. The presentations were interesting and the topics covered were relevant to my studies. Overall, I enjoyed the course even though I would have preferred, on some topics, a bit more theory from the teacher. I would still recommend this course for any beginners in cybersecurity.
— julien mignon, 2026-03-12I had a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings cleared during this course. I did not know much about cybersecurity before the course, but by the end of it I felt like I had a decent understanding which would help me choose what I would want to focus my learning on.
I used Debian Linux, hashcat, and the Tor for the first time.
The presentations were a good part of the course. At times they took a chunk away from the 'theory', but the feedback everyone received is priceless.
I enjoyed the comments and feedback. I was asked good questions that made me think, and if I were to present again, it would be 2 times better for it.
I did enjoy the course. Did not know what to expect, but I am so glad I decided to enrol.
Maybe some days dedicated for presentations, and somedays dedicated to more theory, but every class should include both at least.
I would recommend this course, and I have already recommended it to some friends. Good 'crash course' for getting to know the basics and getting your hands dirty.
I have learned a lot new things about cyber security, which i did not before. I believe the knowledge i gained from this course is really valuable. The course was really interest in learning.
Of course that's my first time learned how to use Linux, cracked passwords by using hashes also installed Tor which i was excited to learn.
This course is obviously important for those who wanted to know about cyber security i would recommend them.
I learned a lot of new concepts and details about security in through this course. I now know various things which i didn't know about, I learned how the encryption actually happens behind the scene and how to crack passwords.
I cracked the password that was pretty good thing to learn for the first time. I used Hashcat for the first time and with the help of this course I got to learn how to use it properly.
Yes and I did like presenting, It made me more confident and also while preparing for the presentation learned a lot about the concept of information securities, and the topic in hand. I loved the feedback given by Tero and my classmates, it was rewarding and also constructive. I will definitely take advices given by the teacher and peers while moving forward.
I really enjoyed the course, The course itself is really good, maybe an addition of guest lecturer who is cybersecurity professional would have been a good bonus.
I would definitely recommend the course with my friends who are interested in cyber security.
Yes, I learned more than something. Choosing this course made me curious about Cyber security. Compared to other courses like software development or other Introduction courses this is my favorite. I was able to do wide range of activities throughout the journey, though sometimes the homework submission was late but it was fun learning the concepts. This is indeed useful. The presentation was okay, didn't enjoyed it cause everything was new to me and It was load of random stuffs. Overall, I enjoyed the course and I definitely recommend others to join this course as It made me take interest in Cyber security and probably choose this field as a career.
One thing I would like you to improve is that getting into a lil more beginner friendly, I get that there were experts in this field but still there were people who felt left out and for them it was difficult to catch up. I prefer less presentations and more practical stuffs should be done at class. Thank you for this journey. I wish you the best.
Before this course I was keen to know about cybersecurity a bit but after joining and finally completing it feels overwhelming to say that I have not only studied but learnt many things that used to look difficult but are actually very easy and interesting to understand. I did all the new things and hashing part was my favorite even though there were some tasks that seem difficult but reading from enough sources can make it easier for a student to survive. Yes everything that I learnt seem useful. I enjoyed presentations so much especially the first and the last ones though I messed up in mine but I am feel lucky to have a teacher like Tero who made sure that I dont feel underconfident and made me realize my mistakes that I would try to improve in future. Doing this course has been one of the best decisions that I have made till now for my degree program and I would love to join more such courses I have already recommended this course to many of my friends and I am sure that next semester Tero will meet my friends. Overall a huge and great thanks to Tero and all the classmates.
— Arshpreet Kaur, 2026-03-12The course is broad but content made me understand it easily. The teacher made me think what's in his mind and that made me learn concepts regarding information security. In addition, Feedbacks are helpful to improve my presentation and reporting skills.
— Jonell, 2026-03-12In this course I learned a lot of new skills around cyber security threats. I liked that the perspective was not just focused on defense but on real world examples of threats and how they work. In this for course I for the first time cracked a hashed password using Hashcat, which showed me how easy it is to crack an insecure password even with hashing algorithms in place. The skills I've learned in this course are not directly applicable to my career, but have given me a different perspective on how my and my companies behaviour has a big impact on the security of our assets. The teacher is very entusiastic about the content which helps to stay motivated. I struggled with the ammount of self study required for this course.
— Mr. Man, 2026-03-12I learned many new things, it was interesting to get an overview of multiple topics regarding information security. Course combines theory with hands on tasks well. Personally I found trying hashcat the most interesting part.
Overall I think this was a fun course, the topics were interesting and complex, but thought in a way that was easy to follow and keep up with. The presentation aspect was fun also, but I would give students more insight into what they should focus, so we dont end up having 4 same presentations back to back, I also wish we did something also in class, practically, yes the homework exists, but sometimes its more fun to do it together in class. Overall this was a fun course, which I do not regret taking 4.5/5.
— Maaz, 2026-03-12Feedback response for late autumn 2025 course, Information Security ICI002AS2AE-3007.
TL;DR I'll give presentation slots at the start and provide extra Linux instruction. If you can code, come to "Application Hacking" ICI012AS3AE-3001.
Thank you for the course & feedback!
Course received a "very good" 4.4 /5 feedback. This is a good score, but not yet on par with my courses on penetration testing, configuration management or programming (which have reached 5.0).
I looked at multiple feedback channels, including Peppi, TeroKarvinen.com https://terokarvinen.com/information-security/#comments , spoken feedback and emailed feedback. Here are themes I noticed.
## Themes
Intense and fast paced. This was both a blessing and a curse. Workload was considered consistent. New topics required rapid context switching. The intensity provided a lot of content in a short time. I feel that giving intense courses respects students' time.
Career relevant knowlege. The skills and knowledge were condsidered to be valuable cross-cutting competency, rather than just needed by security professionals.
Transformative first-time learning experiences. (I created a PhD-level word monster here). Many students tried some techniques first time, and I was happy to see that many of the ones you remembered were representative of key concepts on the course: port scanning, SQL injection, encryption, and threat modeling...
Quality of teaching, expertise and personal feedback - thanks.
Theory vs practice. Many students wished for more in-class guidance for practice, as most of the practice was done in homework. There is some indication that this is highlighted in installing and getting started with the Linux environment, an area linked to course prerequisites. Student presentations compete with guided class practice time, too.
Presentations received both praise and critique. Presenatations built public speaking skills and peer learning. The feedback for presenters was useful, informative and specific. As migth be obvious, the quality of presentations varied, as class participants cannot yet be security experts. Presentations competed for class time, reducing teacher-centered theory teaching and guided practice.
## Improvements
For future, I'm considering these improvements
Tero distributes presentation time slots in the beginning. Maybe offer volunteers to take the first slots. I have already implemented this in Master's level "Cyber Security" course, and the reponse looks good. Thanks for the idea!
Maybe provide structure for preparing to presentations, such as request synopsis and title early, requests slides early. Maybe even provide a short checklist.
Maybe make more explicit prerequisites, such as knowledge on Linux basics.
Maybe provide fresh beginner level step-by-step instructions for installing Linux on VM. Even though some students find this an easy task, it can be time consuming and confusing for those who have not learned it in hobbies or previous courses.
## Your hacker future
For those who said that the course ended too soon, or asked why there are no offensive courses in English:
We have one (1) instance of "Application Hacking" in English. Requries coding skills. "Application Hacking and Vulnerabilities" ICI012AS3AE-3001, Mondays at 11:00 in pa5001, early spring 2026. Enroll in Peppi 2025-11-26 w48 Wed 08:00.
Join Tero's newsletter https://terokarvinen.com/newsletter/ . It includes invitations to visiting lectures by industry experts.
Haaga-Helia hacker club, beginners welcome. https://ht8.fi/ https://discord.com/invite/gv2FCm3JU5
Happy hacking,
--
Tero
Learned a lot about Info Sec, Tero is clearly very knowledgeable on the subject. There were some assignments which taught me to do new things that I found interesting, and made me research new topics which reinforced my learning. I do feel as if though the presentations did take away valuable time from the course (as it was only 8 weeks) that could have been spent doing more practical things in class, which would have helped to strengthen the skills that were learned, such as password cracking, web security, encryption, etc. I would recommend the course to other students that are interested in cyber security and have a lot of extra free time during their semester
— Richard, 2025-10-08This was an informative course where I learned how to crack passwords, how encryption works and essentially to use a VM. This course is fast-paced and doesn't give you much time to dive into the subjects. I would have loved to have at least one or more classes where we explore the Debian system together.
This course has useful information on how hackers attack systems and teaches us to protect ourselves from it. When working in IT it is essential to at least know the basics of cybersecurity.
I learned a lot about different types of cyberattacks and became familiar with the Tor browser, which I previously knew very little about. I also gained insights into encryption and techniques for bypassing frontend setups during penetration testing.
This was my first time working with a virtual machine, and I consciously used an SSH connection for practice.
The knowledge I gained from the course will be valuable for developing applications with a stronger focus on security. There were many interesting presentations — the one about the Tor browser was particularly memorable.
The course is definitely useful, but it’s important to note that participants should have at least basic knowledge of Linux. Some of the instructions are slightly outdated, and following them can lead to errors that are difficult to resolve without relevant experience.
Overall, I would recommend this course to anyone interested in cybersecurity.
Regards
My knowledge in Information Security was amateurish before this course so I was interested to learn more. I did learn about the models, frameworks as I hadn't heard about them before. Also while I had heard about hashes before, I've never used any cracking tools so that was nice to go through.
For the first time, I learned to use tools to crack passwords. Also as a I earlier mentioned, I hadn't heard about threat models so me doing them in this course was the first time.
These skills are surely useful but I think I'd need to take additional courses/learn it at my own time to continue building this knowledge and then it could become really useful in the future work life.
It's good to learn to give presentations in front of the whole class. It's a useful skill in life as almost certainly we will need to give presentations in the work life as well. For that purpose, it's good that we then get the feedback straight after the presentation by the teacher to know what I need to improve in future.
Now for the negative part of this course. In my opinion there could have been way more practical assignments that we could have done during the lessons. It felt like 90% of practical stuff we did in this course was done during homework and I felt that while it's important to learn the theory, it would also be important to learn the practical stuff also during the lessons.
I would recommend this course to people who have even the slightest of interest in information security.
It was amazing to be part of this course because beginners like me with no background in similar field now know and able to use various tools and safety measures about cyber security. Everything was completely new and happy to learn which really enhanced my security skills. Presentations are really the important parts because by this I get the idea of presenting my knowledge and ideas as well as, deal the fear of talking in front of people . Furthermore I believe this course should be recommendable to persons who are really interested to make there carrier in cyber security.
— Smarika Pudasaini, 2025-10-08
Yes, I have learned a lot. The course was quite intensive with various topics each week. The course introduced me to fundamental unfamiliar concepts to me, such as hashing, MITRE ATTACK, and the dark web.
The course allowed me to apply my learned knowledge through practical tasks such as hashing in H7, encrypting/decrypting, etc.
The course covers very useful and fundamental concepts that I believe every professional should know about. I think that implementing presentations on this course allowed for more dynamic learning, since students were given the platform to share and discuss ideas among each other. The teacher was able to give personalized feedback, which is beneficial to my future endeavors.
Overall, I did enjoy the course. I would highly recommend it to my peers. For improvement, I would say structuring the topics in an interconnected way, so that students may move from to another without hassle.
This course thought me a lot of new stuff especially being my first time involved in hacking. This course also thought me alot on the key aspects and topics of cybersec. Almost everything was done for the first time all the homeworks i learned something new. I enjoyed the course and i liked the presentations. Sometimes i wished the teacher would have explained some details more in a way that us beginners would have understood , the teacher was very enthusiastic which i liked, but sometimes IN MY OPINION the teacher explained new stuff like we already new it and some things left unclear and i had to search it by myself of course its on my me for not asking it.
Overall toward the end i started to like the course way more and i learned a lot of new stuff and this course lays the foundations well.
I learned a lot from this course — new tools, techniques, and approaches to understanding Information Security. It was quite thrilling to crack a password for the first time; I really enjoyed that experience! I’ve also become much more comfortable using Linux, which is a huge plus.
Overall, I think this course provides an excellent foundation for anyone looking to build a career in cybersecurity. It offered a fair balance between theory and practice. Yes, the assignments were demanding and sometimes tedious, but they were incredibly helpful and worthwhile.
The presentations were an added bonus. My public speaking skills improved significantly after delivering mine, and it was also interesting to learn from my colleagues and hear their unique perspectives on various topics.
Tero’s comments were a great example of constructive criticism — thoughtful, detailed, and personal. I really appreciated the quality of feedback throughout the course.
I genuinely enjoyed the course and would highly recommend it to anyone truly interested in the field — not just someone taking it for the credits.
One area of improvement could be the inclusion of lecture slides for easier revision, especially when working on assignments.
Overall rating: 4.8/5 ⭐
I found Tero's course on information security very interesting and highly practical as I may want to pursue a career in the information security field.
The subject we covered from threat modelling to the darknet were very well presented by Tero and I think that I got the hang each topic in my own way.
I learned new skills like how to use SQL injection to hack into websites as well as opening SSH servers on my Linux.
Tero as a teacher was very skilled and highly educated on each subject and made them easy to learn even from the point of a complete beginner.
Overall I highly enjoyed this course and would recommend it to someone looking to delve into information security for the first time or even revisit the subject.
A lot of these things I learned in my home university but now I got an better understanding, e.g. for the threat model.
Actually not, but here I used it a lot more often, especially the Linux commands because back in my place this was not very encouraged.
I think it is useful because the more you know the better, companies would appreciate it because you're literally responsible for protecting their assets.
The presentations were often quite similar regarding the topics which is why my presentation was more about the social engineering aspect. There was one presentation about Hacking in videogame which I really liked, because I myself play videogames.
The comments were mostly fine but some bothered me when thy gave me a 3 but no explanation on why they graded me like that and what I could improve. Otherwise it was okay.
I enjoyed the course because it was often interactive, but also tiring at some times.
Not much to improve here to be honest. Maybe the attendance should be less strict and the submission of the assignments.
I would recommend the course to whoever has any interest regarding cyber security.
I found this course to be very informative and diverse - we had the theory that went hand in hand with the hands-on assignments. I learned so many cool and useful things such as using more complex tools on the computer and over all some really interesting aspects such as port scanning and hashes - things I had never done before. I found the contents of this course to be very useful in the future, for both protecting myself digitally and for future jobs. I appreciated the presentations which gave a lot of interesting information on different things covering cybersecurity, I also appreciated the feedback given on the presentations and homework.
I enjoyed this course and would recommend this to anyone interested in learning more on cybersecurity. I had a good time on this course and found everything super cool and interesting, so would recommend for anyone even a little bit interested!
I really enjoyed this course! I learned about the cyber kill chain.
I think that it's very useful because we learned about skills that we need in today's world, directly in the course or through the multiple presentations of the students.
I really liked the different presentations. All the subjects were interesting, and I liked the fact that we could make a presentation on a subject that we liked, and since it was a subject that I liked, it was a good time presenting.
The feedback was good, and I saw what I can improve to make a better presentation, and the questions really served to make the presentation complete.
In short, I really like this course, and I will recommend it.
This course was really interesting and enjoyable. The teacher explained everything clearly and made even the difficult topics easy to follow. I learned a lot about different areas of information security that I didn’t know before.
The assignments took time, but they were very useful and helped me understand the topics better in practice. I also liked reviewing other students’ work, it gave me new ideas and ways to think about security.
Overall, I think this course is great for anyone who wants to learn more about cybersecurity, even if you’re just starting.
I would definitely recommend it. 5/5.
Overall, I learned a lot of new things in the course. I have recommended this course to other students looking to study here at Haaga-Helia, as it gives a lot of insight in information security in general.
The way the course was given was great - I loved Tero's energy and teaching style. The homework was not too heavy but still teached a lot about the subject.
The presentations were really hit or miss as there's no criteria that checks for a certain quality. It might be better if presentations are first checked with the teacher. I do think the presentations itself valuable: You have to research a specific topic, while also improving your presentation skills.
The only downside to this course is that it's not longer; I think it would benefit from extending the course to a full semester so we could dive deeper into specific subjects to learn even more.
All in all, Information Security was the course I looked most forward to. I definitely give it a 5/5
Yes, I learned a lot of new things in this course, especially about information security models, frameworks, and tools used to protect systems and data. I also got to try some activities for the first time, such as creating threat models, using a password manager, and encrypting messages, which made the learning experience more practical and engaging. These skills are useful and valuable in real world companies, particularly in cybersecurity and IT roles. The presentations were interesting and informative, and I enjoyed both listening to others and presenting my own topic. The comments and feedback from the teacher and classmates were helpful, and I always received clear answers to my questions. Overall, I really enjoyed the course it was both educational and enjoyable. I would recommend this course to other students, or anyone interested in cybersecurity, as it provides great foundational knowledge and useful practical skills.5/5
— Saugat Shrestha, 2025-10-08A very good course, I learned a ton of new skills and overall about cybersecurity. There was a perfect balance between theoretical and practical learning. The skills that learned in this course will definitely help me in the future since I want to work in the cybersecurity field. I would for sure recommend this course to other people, even if their dream is not a cyber engineer etc. The skills and the knowledge are very valuable and helpful in general. The presentations were really good, maybe could've been more variety in the subjects (many presentations were about cyber hygiene and fishing etc).I liked presenting my topic and I hope it was useful/informative to others as well. I truly enjoyed the course!
— Sonja Tuovinen, 2025-10-08I learned a lot of new things related to cybersecurity and liked the parts where we got hands on experience. Learned about hashes and how they work. I got to experience "Hacking" for the first time, and found it cool. I feel like the things learned in the class are very useful, when going towards the work life, especially creating VM's. I liked all the presentations, but i struggled a bit with presenting, because i have not done it a lot, but it was cool to get some more experience in that field as well. Overall i enjoyed the course and felt like it was good to take this course. Only improvement from my side would be more hands on work. It was a bit challenging to get into hacking by myself, with no previous experience. I think that i would recommend the course in the future to my friends.
— Engjell, 2025-10-08I really learned a lot of new technuqies and how to use some of the programs and even broke the passwords. For the firs time I broke a password, encrypted a message and did a port scan. For me this course improved and teached me new skill and I am believing that they are going to be usefull in the future. I really liked the presantations because I learnt something new from almost every presentation and the ones with cyberattacks was the best ones for me. I really liked the feedback thing on the homeworks but gave a 1 to a friend by a mistake. I really enjoyed the course espacially when I learnt broking the passwords and searching darkweb. I guess course is all good by itself so I don't see any problems. I would recommend this course and I already did to my friend who lives with me.
— Kaan, 2025-10-08I learned a lot from this course! New tools, skills and concepts which were very interesting. I also tried a lot of new tools for the first time, which was a very interactive and productive part of learning in this course. I can totally see how developing knowledge and skills on the tools and topics covered in this course would help with work life!
Presenting was nice as it pushed to interact with other students and engage in conversations. It was also nice to listen to fresh topics and the point of view of other students about the topics!
I would maybe have more dedicated time for exercises during class, because it helps build a better ground for all of the new information thrown at the student (especially if they are new to the topic). I would totally recommend this class to anyone studying IT at Haaga-Helia!
I learned to use linux in a more competent manner and learnt to understand hacking from an attackers and defenders perspective.
I did a lot for the first time, everything but installing linux was new to me.
The heightened understanding of cybersecurity will shurely help me in the future.
The presentations where often kind of boring, but there where some really good ones.
I never read the comments and feedback because my haaga-helia email is spammed too much.
kindof
I would reccomend the course to students as it is quite important
Yes, I learned a lot of new things in this course, especially about information security models, frameworks, and tools used to protect systems and data. I also got to try some activities for the first time, such as creating threat models, using a password manager, and encrypting messages, which made the learning experience more practical and engaging. These skills are useful and valuable in real world companies, particularly in cybersecurity and IT roles. The presentations were interesting and informative, and I enjoyed both listening to others and presenting my own topic. The comments and feedback from the teacher and classmates were helpful, and I always received clear answers to my questions. Overall, I really enjoyed the course it was both educational and enjoyable. I would recommend this course to other students, or anyone interested in cybersecurity, as it provides great foundational knowledge and useful practical skills
— Saugat Shrestha, 2025-10-08I learned a lot of new techniques, tools and general knowledge on IS in this course! I really enjoyed the 8 week structure of the course and the way the homework was done more as reports / personal notes than highly structured academic text, was very helpful for me personally to actually learning instead of spending hours writing. Tero's a great and enthusiastic teacher on the subject and gets the class intrigued on a regular basis, sparking conversation and questions in class. Presentations were a bit time consuming, and there was not much criteria on them so the quality and length varied greatly. 4,5/5 will recommend to my peers.
— Tobias Weckström, 2025-04-09I really enjoyed this course and found it very useful. I learned a lot of new things, like how to create a threat model and use different security tools. Before this course, I had never tried breaking passwords or testing security in a safe way. It was interesting to see how weak some systems can be.
The hands-on activities were my favorite part. Doing real exercises made it easier to understand the lessons. These skills will definitely be useful in companies, especially for IT and security jobs.
The presentations were interesting, and I liked the feedback from the teacher and classmates. It helped me understand things better. The course was well-organized, but maybe adding more real-world examples or guest speakers would make it even better.
I would definitely recommend this course to anyone interested in cybersecurity. I’ve already told some friends about it. Thanks for a great learning experience!
The course was a very great experience. It is recommended for beginners who are interested in IT Security and it provides a friendly overview of crucial topics in its field.
The practical approach and the assignments are set up in an interesting way, that enables the consumption of a great deal of knowledge in the hacking area.
It is important to understand the attacking concpets in order to know how to provide defense mechanisms against cyber criminals.
What I also liked was the way on how we discussed the topics in class and that there were always super presentations hold by the students. Questions were always answered perfectly and the class had always learned a lot during the lessons.
For the next course I recommend to assign the presentations slots directly to the students, instead of giving them time to reserve it for themselfs. Since the cyber security presentations are very interesting and can be detailed, the clock can easily hit 30 minutes, which according to my opinion is totally fair. We have to keep in mind, that in the assignments a lot of time can be invested already and therefore the lessons will not suffer if a presentation takes longer than 15 minutes.
This approach will not only prevent the stress situations of the students presenting in the last slot of the course but also enable the teacher to cover an additional exciting security topic ;-)
Talking about the teacher....Tero is a very kind teacher with a perfect humour. It is very comfortable to pay attention during his classes as he always brings a lot of motivation into the room.
I experienced him as an extremly competent coach and I can totally recommend his courses to all of you who are eager to learn more about cyber security.
Thanks a lot Tero and all the best with your next courses!
Saluti
Sean
Well planned topics and interesthing range, was easy to keep up homework was practical and good for learning.
— Kristian, 2025-03-11### Early Autumn 2024 ###
Below, you can read comments from "Information Security" Early Autumn 2024. It was course instance ICI002AS2AE-3005.
This was a fantastic course as a whole. The enthusiastic and highly knowledgeable teaching method kept me engaged and eager to learn more. The versatile subjects and varying difficulty posed different kinds of challenges, and opened my eyes to new interests in the world of cyber security.
Anyone taking this course has to be prepared to put in the time as there is a fair amount of work required for the homework, but you are guaranteed to learn something new by doing them well! Evaluating your peers work will also give some nice new ideas and perspectives.
I would recommend this course to anyone with even the least bit of interest in information security.
5/5.
I really enjoyed this course and found it valuable. I learned a lot of new frameworks and tools, like creating threat models and using password managers for the first time. These skills will definitely be useful in a professional context, especially for cybersecurity roles.
The presentations were interesting but very time-consuming of the lecture time. The homework was also quite extensive, so students need to be prepared for a heavy workload.
Overall, the feedback from both classmates and the instructor was helpful, and I would recommend this course to anyone interested in cybersecurity. Just be aware of the time commitment involved!
found the course to be amazing overall, and I particularly appreciated the mandatory presentation as an assessment. The way the presentation was spread over several weeks, introducing a new topic each day, made the learning process engaging. Many of the topics covered were really interesting to me, and it was great to explore them in depth.
The homework assignments were another enjoyable aspect of the course. They provided a good balance between learning and practical application, making the content more fun and easier to absorb.
One thing that really stood out for me was the level of engagement from Tero (the instructor). I've attended other courses before, but I've rarely seen an instructor as active and involved as Tero was. His engagement made the course more dynamic and motivating.
This course has been a great learning experience for me, especially as someone without a strong IT background. Many of the topics were completely new to me, but they were truly fascinating. Tero has a rich knowledge and was always enthusiastic about sharing it with us. Although he has strict policies regarding phone and laptop usage in class, it helps maintain focus and creates a better learning environment.
Through the course I learnt lot of new topics of Information security with hands-on learning. I worked on GitHub and we had to analyzing risks through threat modeling with frameworks such as STRIDE and CIA and discussing security hygiene practices. We also installed Debian 12-Bookworm Linux in VirtualBox and explored web vulnerabilities, including SQL injection, using tools like WebGoat, TOR etc.
These practicals helped me to have a understand in information security and ethical hacking was a highlight. Class discussions were so informative, and I definitely recommend to anyone serious about IT.
Course is great, i loved it, but be prepared to do a lot of homework and be present for classes. Heals from smartphone addiction. :)
— Olga, 2024-10-09I absolutely loved this course. Tero is an excellent instructor, and he really put in a lot of effort to teach us as many new things as possible. I also appreciated how he structured the homework assignments (This is the best part). At first, I felt a bit overwhelmed during the initial weeks, but over time I adapted to the process and began to enjoy it. Initially, I didn’t attempt the voluntary tasks, but now, even after the course is complete, I plan to do some of them out of curiosity. One area for improvement would be to provide a brief overview of the topics we would cover in homework during each class. While we did this in most classes, it would have been helpful to do so consistently. Not in detail, but maybe just a glimpse of what’s to come.
5/5 for me and definitely recommend this one!
I really liked this course. Every week we learned something new. At first I thought that there was a lot of homework, but after a few weeks it got better. For me I liked the policy for returning the homework 24h before the class and if you didn't you will be out of the course. This pushed us to really learn.
— Yasmin Mouarib, 2024-10-08Hello Hacker mentor, really thank you. That is your course recalls my dream to be a hacker. Your teaching style is very humorous and relaxed. From simple to profound. I thought everyone was focus on your speaking. Sometimes I just want to translate the word I don't know, which will get your eye killing. Yet I find you are right that I don't need to translate. You may explain what the word means later. It is very good to just focus on the course content. You are not easy, there is a proverb: three minutes on stage, ten years of hard work off stage.
Yesterday I just created my environment(rent a Tencent Cloud service 1-month free trial) which is hosted in China Guangzhou for the presentation to use the whole day because the VNC could see the screen of the service computer but can't control it. (I spent a bunch of time adjusting the .vnc/xstartup and installing the TightVNC and the version problem with ubuntu24.04, but finally, it's because I have not signed with SSH in VNC viewer.) And I am not very familiar with Linux. finally, I got it to work but about VPN and TOR test still need more time. I will update all my work to github later. When it is down. Actually, I think hacking is like magic when you don't know, and it's easy when you know. I heard that a classmate is very interested with the GFW, so I borrowed your platform to share my PPT.
https://github.com/Stephenyeah/Information-security/blob/study/-G_%20F_%20W-.pptx
Anyway, I will recommend your course to my friend who is crazy about hacking technology.
10/10 for the course.
I learned many new things throughout this course. The one that impressed me the most was about Hashes and cracking them.
I did lots of things for the first time like breaking passwords or using a password manager for the first time in my life (normally all passwords were in my brain... until know lol). The presentations were great and very informative! I also liked the way we submitted our homework and the fact that we would get 2 feedbacks every time.
Overall I really enjoyed this course and recommend it!!
Good course all in all. I learned a lot about cyber killchain and owasp 10. I wish that in future courses maybe there would be more hacking together in the class. But now we have the tools so we can do it ourselves and know the places where to learn to hack.
Tero had a great way of teaching, and he really got all of our attention and it made me feel like that he really wanted to teach the class, and didnt let people use their mobilephones.
Maybe a bit of constructive criticism would be to cap the maximum length of the presentations.
I'm happy that I finally learned to use GPG and checked if I remember how to hack :D Choosing to do the presentation on my thesis gave me the needed boost to start finishing my thesis. Most of the new stuff I learned came from my peers' presentations. Couple topics like what The Dark Web actually means without any propaganda, The Great Firewall, Scams in Vietnam, MFA exploits and Telegram bots that can easily dig up super personal info of some Russian Telegram users. All the topics mentioned were super eye-opening and fascinating. Nice job guys!
The homework material was very good, especially for absolute beginners. I wished that there was more direct guidance to guide the beginners to a hacking platform to continue maintaining and enhancing their hacking skills. The internet is full of information and options to choose from. The guidance can give the confidence and comfort to focus on the most important thing... hacking. duh :D After getting the basic framework to work from, it's easier to get better when you know where to look information from.
I wish that in the future, there are going to be some alternative exercises for people that can't get their VM's working for some reason. HackTheBox, for example, has their VM's in the cloud so you just need an internet connection and browser to do hacking exercises.
The peer evaluation works very well! I just wish that in future you could specify when you need to explain what each part of the command does. I don't think you don't need to specify if you do some basic stuff like sudo apt-get update, mkdir, cd, ls etc. Or idk... maybe there were a lot of things that were self-evident for me but absolutely not for others. Maybe the course requirements are needed to clarify some things.
I think you have found the ideal length for the lessons. Keep it up! Maybe I'm nitpicking at this point, but I and probably others would like you to stay on the topic more and try to avoid random transitions where we're going in detail to something that wasn't quite the topic of the lesson. The random transitions are natural and needed, but just try to focus on the topic itself more. It's okay if we have to end a little bit earlier because of that. We can use the time to do some exercises or check the previous homework for 10 minutes.
Anyway, I will keep recommending your courses to my peers. I think it's time they can have fun with Linux, hacking, tor and cybersecurity in general. These skills are absolutely useful for everyone.
5/5
This course has taken my knowledge of cyber security from just a buzzword I'd heard, to a genuine interest and community I hope to be a contributing part of someday. Out of all the courses I've taken so far at Haaga-Helia, I'm really happy to have picked this one (after it was recommended to me by previous students) & that it was taught by Tero, whose passion & knowledge about the topics made the lectures very enjoyable & rewarding.
I found the information and skills I learned to be quite valuable as I am pursuing a career in IT, but I would recommend the course to practically anyone. I think it's always a good idea to push your boundaries and knowledge, even when it might be something you know nothing about!
Whilst I found the course structure, assignments & provided materials to be very good, I would personally prefer to have less focus on presentations by students and instead expand on the more technical & theoretical lecturing by Tero. That being said, I still found the presentations to be informative and valuable.
Thanks for the course! 10/10 would recommend.
UTM & Debian 12 instructions for Mac M1, M2, and M3 processors under a) Bookworm:
https://github.com/MarcCarr/InfoSecMC/blob/main/H2_Kill_Chain.md