Data Protection and Resilience

This unit teaches learners how to protect sensitive information, manage access, and maintain operations when cyber incidents occur. Students will practice risk assessment, operational controls (passwords, encryption, VPNs, physical and remote-work safeguards), and backup/continuity procedures to prepare for incident response in subsequent units.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze organizational and personal risks to data and systems across devices, cloud services, user accounts, and physical locations and prioritize mitigations based on impact and likelihood
• Apply access-control and data-protection techniques, including strong password practices, multifactor authentication, encryption, VPN usage, and secure handling of data when using cloud services or public networks
• Demonstrate continuity and recovery practices by designing backup strategies, performing hard-reset and restoration procedures, and creating a basic continuity/disaster-recovery plan for remote and onsite workforces
• Evaluate social engineering, third-party, and physical security threats (e.g., phishing, SIM swapping, video-conferencing risks) and recommend policy, training, and insurance or regulatory measures to reduce human-targeted vulnerabilities