Privacy, Device Security, and Backups

This capstone unit focuses on protecting personal and organizational data through privacy controls, device and network hardening, secure authentication, and reliable backup and recovery. Students identify and mitigate emerging privacy threats (trackers, deep fakes, malvertising, social engineering), apply safe practices for smart devices and public networks, and design encrypted, tested backup and recovery plans to preserve availability and integrity.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze and categorize privacy and integrity threats—including nonmalicious hazards, trackers, malvertising, deep fakes, and social engineering/virtual kidnapping—and assess their potential impact on personal and organizational data.
• Apply device- and network-level protections by configuring smart devices, disabling unnecessary sharing, segregating internet access, and using secure practices for public Wi‑Fi and endpoint security to reduce exposure.
• Demonstrate secure authentication and credential management by creating, storing, transmitting, and recovering passwords safely, evaluating multifactor authentication vulnerabilities, and comparing alternatives to passwords.
• Design and implement comprehensive backup and recovery strategies that select appropriate backup locations, exclude and archive files as needed, encrypt and test backups, rotate and restore backups (including non-original restores), and follow best practices to prevent data loss and aid recovery.