Free course "Cisco ASA Administrator"

  • Tutorial


Shortage of IT specialists. I am sure that many system integrators, as well as ordinary companies, face this problem. In this case, I mean "networkers" and "bezopasnik". It seems that universities for several years increase the enrollment of students in specialized specialties, and the deficit does not decrease and even grows. And let's face it, the quality of specialists immediately after the university leaves much to be desired (of course there are exceptions). And this is not at all the fault of the students themselves; it’s just that our current education system does not fully provide practical skills. That is why we have been taking students of 3 and 4 courses for internship for several years in a row . And almost every year we keep one or two talented engineers. If the internship format is interesting, you can read it here., but now it's not about that.

Usually, as a first practical assignment, we give students the Course of a Young Fighter , who unexpectedly for me, has become very popular in runet. After that, we moved to more specialized things (we are still engaged in security): Check Point, Fortinet, Splunk, Kali-Linux . However, it soon became clear that this was a too abrupt transition - from ordinary networks, immediately to such complex information security products. Let's face it, the same Check Point, not the best option to get acquainted with the firewalls. It was necessary to start with something simpler. That is why we started creating the “ Cisco ASA Administrator ” course . We immediately decided that we would make this course open and launch on NetSkills channel, simply because there are more subscribers, which means that more people will see it. Why this course and what it is, we will describe below.

Why Cisco ASA


First, consider the “global” reasons:

  1. Cisco ASA is one of the most popular firewalls in the world. It is unlikely that you will meet a network specialist who would not know what a Cisco ASA is. A huge number of companies use this firewall. Hence the following reason ...
  2. Easier to find a job. You can check it yourself by going to the Headhanter website and searching for vacancies for “cisco”. In most cases, you will meet as candidate requirements — Cisco ASA knowledge.
  3. Cisco ASA is actually the standard for stateful inspection firewalls. If you understand how the ASA works, then it will not be difficult for you to master other devices.
  4. And another important advantage is the ability to emulate GNS3 and EVE NG. Even the Cisco Packet Tracer has this feature in the form of the Cisco ASA 5505 (although the functionality there is very poor).

If we talk about our interests (as a system integrator), then everything is trivial - a huge number of customers with Cisco ASA. Replacing the Cisco ASA with a more functional device (the same Check Point) is one of the most frequent projects. That is why it is very important to have experience with these devices. And in our opinion, the study of security products is also better to start with this firewall. It is easier to understand the topic of segmentation, access lists, VPN, and so on.

What is the course about?


The course will cover the following topics:

  • What is a firewall
  • Cisco Firewall History
  • Layout Preparation (GNS3, EVE NG)
  • Security Level and Stateful Inspection
  • Basic setting
  • Vlans
  • Access Lists
  • NAT / Static NAT
  • VPN (Site-to-Site, RA VPN)
  • Troubleshooting
  • Conclusion, recommendations

Video lessons


All lessons are as usual in video format, where theory and practice are present. After some lessons you must pass the test. To date, only 5 lessons have been recorded. There was a big break in the issues (the forces were sent to the Check Point course to the maximum ), but we plan to resume soon.


After recording all the lessons, you will be asked to pass the exam and receive a certificate of successful completion of the course.

Conclusion


Of course, Cisco ASA is already a bit outdated product, but, as I wrote above, this is an excellent (and in our opinion very necessary) “step” to study more interesting and complex security products. We sincerely hope that this course will be useful to someone other than us. We would be grateful if you tell us in the comments how to prepare your Security Engineers. What courses do you use, what books are you reading?
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