Cyber Security with AI Bootcamp

You cannot protect what you do not understand. Phase 1 builds the essential technical foundation for your security career while developing the diagnostic mindset of a real incident responder. Through a structured troubleshooting approach, you will learn to think like an analyst from day one.

What you master:

• Hardware & Architecture: Understanding what you defend at the physical layer, from CPUs to motherboards.
• OS Administration: Windows and Linux skills that underpin forensic investigation, permissions, and malware analysis.
• Troubleshooting Methodology: Structured problem diagnosis, isolating variables, and testing hypotheses.
• Data & Interfaces: Crucial context for forensic work, data classification, and system movement.
• Documentation & Awareness: Developing clear, structured writing and a security mindset from the very beginning.

Lab focus: 57 hands-on hardware and troubleshooting labs across the first two phases. This includes your first unassisted diagnostic sessions with real virtual machines and real faults, but no instructions.

Most cybersecurity incidents today move through cloud-connected infrastructure. Understanding modern physical, virtual, and cloud environments is not just background knowledge – it is your map to trace attacks and identify exactly what does not belong.

What you master:

• Networking Fundamentals: Protocols like TCP/IP, DNS, and HTTP analyzed from the command line to trace packets and spot anomalies.
• Virtualisation Concepts: Hypervisors, containers, and VMs, along with security risks like VM escapes and isolation strategies.
• Cloud Computing Models: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and the shared responsibility model that serves as the foundation for your future GRC work.
• Mobile Device Management: BYOD security policies and mobile data protection, directly relevant to GDPR compliance in the workplace.
• Git & GitHub: Version control for security scripts, Infrastructure as Code, and modern DevSecOps environments.
• Security Awareness: Best practices and the human factor as the cornerstone of a strong security culture from day one.

Lab focus: Continued hardware labs plus 31 specialized operating systems labs. Your VDI sessions include real cloud console navigation and virtualisation configuration.

The network is your operating environment as an analyst. Whether you are working in a SOC, conducting vulnerability assessments, or advising on NIS2 compliance, you must read network traffic, understand normal protocol behavior, and spot anomalies immediately. Phase 3 makes you completely fluent in this language.

What you master:

• OSI Model & Network Analysis: Mapping attacks to OSI layers, plus packet inspection and port scanning using real capture files.
• IP Addressing & Segmentation: Subnetting to prevent lateral movement of attackers across overly flat networks.
• Identity & Access Control: Attacking and defending passwords, MFA, certificates, and Single Sign-On.
• Wireless & Remote Security: WPA3, rogue access point detection, VPN configurations, and modern Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA).
• Network Hardening & Firewalls: Reducing attack surfaces through firewall rules, traffic filtering, and least-privilege principles.
• Cloud Security Introduction: Practicing the shared responsibility model and debunking compliance misconceptions regarding AWS or Azure.

Lab focus: 82 networking and connectivity labs – the largest lab category in the program, reflecting how critical and transferable network analysis is across all cybersecurity roles.

Phase 4 is the most intensive phase of the program and provides your clearest career differentiation. Here, you connect your technical skills with the regulatory reality in Germany, dive deep into AI security, and pass the CompTIA Security+ examination. This unique combination of certification, hands-on GRC, ISO 27001, IT law, and AI security is unmatched.

What you master:

Security Analysis & Incident Response

• Threat Intelligence & Risk Assessment: Profiling attackers and tracking their tactics using intelligence frameworks.
• Cryptography & Forensics: Implementing encryption in line with GDPR and ISO 27001, and mastering the 6-phase incident response process including evidence collection.
• IAM & Detection Systems: Managing identity and access control as a critical success factor, alongside deploying and tuning IDS/IPS systems.
• Log Analysis & Threat Hunting: Conducting proactive threat hunting and alert investigations using tools like Splunk, ELK Stack, and Microsoft Sentinel.

AI in Cybersecurity

• The Evolving Attack Surface: Understanding AI as a tool for both defenders and attackers, and securing models, prompts, and APIs against manipulation.
• AI-Assisted Operations: Automating reports and log summaries while ensuring the responsible use of AI tools.
• AI Governance & Incident Response: Managing risk assessment, compliance concerns, and responding to AI-specific security incidents.

GRC Fundamentals & IT Law

• Risk Management & ISO 27001: Governing the full risk lifecycle and building, managing, and auditing an Information Security Management System (ISMS) to international standards.
• BSI-IT-Grundschutz: Mastering Germany's national security framework – a genuine differentiator in the local job market.
• German & EU Cybersecurity Law: Successfully implementing compliance requirements under GDPR (including the 72-hour breach notification window) and the NIS2 Directive (security measures and BSI reporting timelines).
• Governance & Works Councils: Writing compliant security policies while navigating the co-determination rights of German Works Councils when deploying security tools.

Lab focus: 58 Compliance & Security Framework labs. You write policies, build risk registers, and prepare audit evidence – the exact outputs of a GRC Analyst's working week.

Phase 5 elevates your capabilities to analyst-level. You will tackle complex, real-world scenarios across cloud environments, web applications, and multi-vector attack simulations using industry-standard tools. This phase directly builds the advanced expertise certified by CompTIA CySA+ and completes your AI in Cybersecurity track.

What you master:

Advanced Security Analysis

• Advanced Threat Intelligence & EDR: Deep-dive attacker profiling and endpoint threat hunting, correlating telemetry with SIEM platforms like Splunk and Sentinel.
• Vulnerability Management & OWASP Top 10: Scanning networks and cloud environments, calculating CVSS scores, and conducting controlled exploitation against web application flaws.
• Red vs. Blue Team Methodologies: Experiencing structured offensive and defensive exercises to build a complete, dual-perspective security mindset.
• Automation & Remediation Strategy: Writing scripts to automate scanning workflows and drafting professional vulnerability reports with clear, prioritized fixing plans.

AI in Cybersecurity

• EU AI Act & Governance: Integrating AI risk assessments into ISO 27001 and NIS2 compliance programs, while navigating legal obligations for high-risk AI.
• AI-Powered SOC & Production Automation: Operating with AI-driven first-pass triage, building automated reporting pipelines, and managing AI-enhanced threat hunting.
• AI Incident Response: Defending against attacks targeting AI systems, such as prompt injection and model poisoning, as well as AI-generated malware.

Advanced Cloud Security

• Cloud Scanning & Zero Trust: Spotting misconfigurations and over-permissioned IAM roles in AWS and Azure, while applying Zero Trust principles to meet NIS2 requirements.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Security: Securing configurations within the CI/CD pipeline before they deploy to production.
• Cloud Incident Response: Conducting investigations using cloud-native logs and mastering evidence preservation in ephemeral environments.

Lab focus: 25 Cybersecurity Analysis labs, 6 Cloud & Virtualization labs, and advanced SIEM scenarios. This phase features the highest concentration of unassisted diagnostic sessions, forcing you to solve real issues without a safety net.

The capstone is your professional portfolio – the tangible evidence you present to employers and discuss in interviews. It is structured to produce the exact deliverables that hiring managers in security operations, GRC, and cloud security are actually looking for.

What you produce:

• Security Assessment Report: A structured vulnerability assessment of a target environment. Findings are risk-rated using CVSS and translated into a prioritized remediation plan ready for senior management.
• GRC Documentation Package: A core set of security policies tailored to an organizational scenario. It includes a risk register and demonstrates exactly how the controls satisfy GDPR and ISO 27001 requirements.
• AI Security Risk Assessment: A structured analysis of an enterprise AI system. You will identify data, misuse, and supply chain risks, and document the required controls and governance decisions in line with the EU AI Act.
• Final Presentation: A 20-minute briefing and Q&A session before a panel. This mirrors real-world executive briefings and sharpens your communication skills under pressure.

The context: Capstone scenarios are grounded in the German business landscape – whether a Mittelstand manufacturer, a healthcare provider, or a financial services firm. Your entire project aligns directly with the regulatory and operational realities (GDPR, NIS2, ISO 27001) you will encounter on the job.

Assessment criteria:

• Technical accuracy and depth of the security assessment
• Quality, completeness, and compliance-readiness of the GRC documentation
• Depth and practicality of the AI risk analysis
• Clarity, structure, and professional quality of the final presentation and Q&A