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Professional Certificate · Bachelor's level · CPP-22
System Hardening and Patch Management
For: System administrators, operations technicians and IT asset managers responsible for configuring and updating servers and workstations.
Learning outcomes
- Reduce a system's attack surface by configuring its services, accounts and logging.
- Apply a hardening guide to a system.
- Organise patch management across an IT estate.
Programme over 4 weeks
| Week | Content |
|---|---|
| Week 1 | Reducing the attack surface: the principle of hardening; services, accounts and logging; the concept of a baseline configuration. |
| Week 2 | Applying a hardening guide to a server, in an isolated virtual lab: services, accounts, logging, baseline configuration. |
| Week 3 | Vulnerability and patch management across an IT estate: organising and tracking updates; drafting a patch management plan. |
| Week 4 | Professional simulation: hardening of a lab server according to a supplied guide and a patch management plan for a fictitious IT estate. |
Assessment
Marked professional simulation, assessed against a rubric (70%): hardening of a lab server and patch management plan for a fictitious IT estate; online knowledge-check quiz (30%). All exercises take place in an isolated virtual lab; no exercise is carried out on a live system.
The certificate is awarded with a mark of at least 10 out of 20.
Optional: Server Configuration Audit
An additional 1-credit module over 2 weeks (CPP-22C), awarded as a separate certificate; together with this certificate, it makes up the full course component of the original programme.
- Auditing a server's configuration against the baseline configuration: recording and classifying deviations.
- Corrective measures and verification of their implementation.
At your own pace: the self-paced pathway
In a class, this certificate takes 4 weeks, on the cohort's dates. On the self-paced pathway, you start whenever you like, online, and progress at your own pace. The price is the same.
Estimate how long my pathway will take
- Duration
- about 4 weeks
- Estimated end
- 4 weeks after you start
- Examination
- Online, subject to available slots, no earlier than 4 weeks after you start
- Payment
- In a single payment
An indicative estimate, for a start today and 40 hours of work. You can change your pace along the way; the pathway must be completed within 12 weeks (about 3 months) of your start. Your e-Campus access opens with your first payment.
Admission
Experience in administering a Linux or Windows system assessed on application. Admission based on application; detailed requirements set by the school.
The credits you earn are recognised without further assessment if you later join the programme they come from, Professional Bachelor's degree in Network and Information Systems Administration and Security, within a period set by the certificate regulations.