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Global Information Assurance Certification

It was, overall, the most in-depth training on securing Windows I've attended!
-Matt Hurst, Madison City Schools

SPECIAL

Content Scanning Hands-On

6 CPE Credits per day

SANS Content Scanning Hands-On introduces you to the knowledge and skills necessary to protect the data streams in your organization against external and internal attacks. Malware, junk e-mail, and other threats to data keep increasing despite efforts world-wide to combat them. It's a war out there and this track gives you the tools to fight it! Starting with the foundation of how the common data streams like e-mail and Web work on the protocol level the course progresses step-by-step to a comprehensive defense strategy.

We take apart examples of common threats such as malware and spam, so you gain a better understanding of the techniques used by the attackers. From these threats we build the countermeasures and defenses using a fully functional content scanner. Detailed discussions of the architecture of a scanner and the various rule elements help you understand how to optimally operate and configure these complex systems. We will build rule elements and combine them into new rules, then test, troubleshoot, and fine tune them. Take advantage of the knowledge of the many professionals that have gone down the path before you to get your defense system up quickly and adjust it to the ever changing world of threats.

The course includes many hands-on exercises with the demonstrated tools on a live in-class network. The many hands-on labs guide you through the setup of a real content scanner all the way to fine-tuning the many different rules. The system is ready for production use by the end of the course. Students are invited to bring their own Windows 2000 or XP laptop for use during class to build their very own scanner. Sign up for this course and experience the mix of theory and hands-on, pragmatic knowledge.

The perfect balance of theory and hands on experience.
-James d. Perry II, University of Tennessee

Author Statement

We have passed laws against junk e-mails and took spammers to court. Law enforcement world-wide is cracking down on malware writers, porn rings, and pirates. Despite all these efforts attacks against our precious data just keep increasing. As much as we would like to, we cannot rely on others to protect our data streams. If managing a firewall in the first three OSI layers looks difficult, managing a content scanner that covers all seven layers looks absolutely daunting. The task can be broken down into easy to understand pieces, though. Understand the pieces and you can build a functional whole and keep it up-to-date against the constantly changing threats out there. The knowledge is then put to the test in the labs using real life example messages. There is nothing else like this course out there in the content security field.

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