During winter semester 22/23, the lecture "Selected Aspects of IT Security" ("Ausgewählte Aspekte der IT-Sicherheit“) was held in coorporation with usd AG as part of the option modules of the Bachelor's degree programm of the Department of Economics at Mainz University of Applied Sciences. Andreas Duchmann, member of the Executive Board of usd and for many years lecturer at Mainz University of Applied Science, held the lecture together with Tim Wörner, Senior Consultant IT Security at usd HeroLab.
Andreas Duchmann underlines: "It is enormously important to raise students' awareness of the challenges and risks of today's digital world at an early stage. The keen interest of the students shows the relevance of integrating information security into education and thus laying the foundation for a more secure digital environment of tomorrow."
The lecture provided students with in-depth knowledge on the topics of information security and IT security. Topics covered included:
- Technical vulnerabilities, motives and strategies of hackers
- Presentation of selected IT security measures
- Crash course Linux, concept and installation of virtual machines
- Secure Development Lifecycle & Threat Modeling
- Bug Bounty and Responsible Disclosure
The students dealt extensively with the secure implementation and operation of a website as part of a practical exercise. Here they looked, among other things, at the general hardening of the operating system to protect against hacker attacks, file integrity monitoring to secure PHP code on the web server, and the use of security solutions to proactively detect hacker attacks. Working in groups, the students developed their strategies, presented their findings and documented them as a term paper.
"The practical approach was a great way for the students to apply what they had learned in a concrete way, develop their skills, and gain a deeper understanding of proactive security measures." concludes Tim Wörner.
