Explore KSACs by Pathway
Explore Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Credentials (KSACs) by IT Pathway.
5. Cybersecurity Fundamentals
Label | KSAC Description | Bloom's Taxonomy Level | Cross-Cutting | |
---|---|---|---|---|
a | Examine and employ principles of cybersecurity including its goals, objectives, and purposes | ability | 2 | |
b | Describe the need for security and identify security risks and ssociated security safeguards and methodologies (e.g., auditing). | knowledge | 2 | |
c | Explain the need for confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA) and identify types of controls (e.g., deterrent, preventative, detective, compensating, technical and administrative) | knowledge | 1 | |
d | Explain security in terms of authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) as well as access | knowledge | 3 | |
e | Understand the purpose and function of cybersecurity technology so identifying and implementing the various tools necessary to improve an organization's resiliency and reduce the possibility of data breaches | ability | 3 | |
f | Describe, recognize, and mitigate major security threats (e.g., adware, viruses, spyware, trojans, rootkits, logic bombs, worms, spyware, ransomware, spoofing, hacking, phishing, and ploymorphic malware), using the tools standard in the industry | skill | 4 | |
g | Describe the components of the physical environment (e.g., wiring closets, server rooms, data centers) and physical security systems. | knowledge | 2 | |
h | Describe the need for security in networking (e.g., firewalls, access controls, encryption, demilitarized zone). | knowledge | 2 | |
i | Understand the indicators of compromise (IOCs) and their use in determining whether an attack has happened or is in progress | knowledge | 3 | |
j | Track and catalog computing assets through inventory management, devices and software | ability | 2 | |
k | Describe the need for security in application development. | knowledge | 2 | |
l | Describe computer forensic techniques, their importance in incident response, and their relevance to law enforcement | knowledge | 2 | |
m | Recognize and describe industry threat models (CVE, CWE, threat intel feed, etc). | skill | 2 | |
n | Demonstrate and recognize common cyber-attack techniques such as the cyber kill chain and the MiTRE ATT&CK framework | knowledge | 3 | |
o | Describe attackers (black hat, white hat, nation states, etc.) and techniques (cybercriminals, APTs). | knowledge | 2 | |
p | Describe and understand social engineering attacks (e.g., shoulder surfing, dumpster diving, tailgating, impersonation, hoaxes, phishing, spear phishing, whaling, vishing), | knowledge | 2 | |
q | Understand the issues with passwords and the tools and techniques available to crack passwords (e.g. brute force, dictionary attacks, birthday attacks, rainbow attacks and other hybrid attacks). | knowledge | 2 | |
r | Desctribe and discover vulnerabilities, understanding concepts and tools of vulnerability assessment, scanning, and penetration testing, and the work of red .purple and blue teams. | knowledge | 2 | |
s | Demonstrate an understanding of adversarial thinking using capture the flag (CTF) and other techniques. | skill | 3 | |
t | Understand the concept of digital trust computing and the Zero Trust principles | knowledge | 2 | |
u | Describe cyber threat intelligence (CTI) and its role in cybersecurity | knowledge | 2 | |
v | Recognize that an enterprise security requires a holistics strategy that considers people, process, and technology. | knowledge | 2 | |
w | Categorize system contrils in compliance with government and industry standards including NIST Cybersecurity Framework, FISMA, FEDRAMP, PCI/DSS and ISO standards | knowledge | 4 |
Credentials
Entry
- Security+
- Network+
- Cloud+
- CEH
- GSEC
- CAP
Mid-level
- CCNA
- CYSA+
Advanced
- CASP
- CISSP
- CISA
- CISM
- CRISC
- CCSP