Social engineering remains the most used method of cybercrime, affecting businesses as well as citizens, their organisations and public institutions. In response to this growing threat, the European Digital Innovation Hub Trakia (EDIH Trakia) has launched a new training service – an online course on Cyber Defence – service No. 20 in EDIH Trakia’s catalogue of free services, designed for individuals and organisations looking to build key skills to defend against cyber attacks.
The course is implemented under the Cyber4AllSTAR project with the financial support of the Digital Europe Programme of the European Union and the national programme “Research, Innovation and Digitisation for Smart Transformation” (RIDIT 2021-2027).
The dates of the pilot edition of the online lecture course in March 2025 are 19.03, 24.03, 26.03 and 31.03. The dates of the second edition of the course in April 2025 are 07.04, 14.04, 23.04 and 28.04. As the groups fill up on a monthly basis, the dates for the other upcoming trainings in that month will be finalized.
What is the course?
The course provides an in-depth introduction to the principles and practices of cyber defense. It is suitable for beginners in the field of cyber security who want to understand the methods of attackers and gain practical skills to defend themselves. The content builds on the basic “Security Fundamentals” course (service #17), but remains far removed from the more technically oriented “Penetration Testing Fundamentals” (service #18), “Web Hacking Fundamentals” (service #19), and “Offensive Pentesting” (service #21), designed to train specialized personnel in network and information security.
The course is led by Dr. Hristian Daskalov from the management of the European Digital Innovation Hub “Trakia”, who has teaching experience in the technological sphere gained at the Sofia Business School of New Bulgarian University, Technical University – Sofia and Plovdiv University “Paisii Hilendarski”. The lecturer is a guest analyst on current cyber threats and incidents from national and international practice for specialized and poly-thematic programs on national air. He participates in expert groups and projects of the Bulgarian Cyber Security Association (BCA) and the European Cyber Security Organisation (ECSO), including inter-agency and international advisory formats on cyber security issues.
Guest speakers will be joined by established experts from practice such as Lily Angelova – a long-time radio presenter who will share her advice in the field of communications, as the course will cover the topic of which subtleties in communication are exploited by social engineers in order to acquire key information and its subsequent exploitation. Denis Petkov, who coordinates the academic partnerships of EDIH Trakia and is a regular contributor to the specialized webinars of the Digital Hub, will also provide expert advice on the topics of the course curriculum.
Training highlights:
✅ Understanding the different types of cyber attacks – phishing, ransomware, other types of malware and APTs (Advanced Persistent Threats); ✅ Practical approaches to protection, including intrusion detection, vulnerability management and incident response; ✅ Lab exercises and real-world case studies to build practical skills.
What will you learn?
📌 Identify threats and vulnerabilities and implement effective countermeasures; 📌 Security monitoring and operations, as well as incident response and digital forensics; 📌 Fundamentals of malware analysis and using specialized detection and investigation tools.
How will the training be conducted?
🔹 Entirely Online – each month up to and including December 2025, a new group of trainees will be launched to run four classroom workshops together; 🔹 Duration – 32 training hours of which 16 classroom hours, after working hours, with flexible organisation of practical assignments according to the needs of public sector clients and SMEs; 🔹 Teaching in Bulgarian and English – to be accessible to participants from Bulgaria as well as from all EU Member States and associated countries of the Digital Europe Programme (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Ukraine, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Albania, Kosovo, Türkiye, Moldova and Bosnia & Herzegovina).
How to signup?
🔹 For trainees – book your place in one of the upcoming monthly editions of the course by filling in the form at https://bit.ly/CyberDefenseCourse; 🔹 For companies and organizations, users of the service – request the training as a free service through the online form at https://dihtrakia.org/services, selecting service №20 (Cyber Defense);🔹 In case of any questions, contact us at office@edihtrakia.org.
💰 Price: the service is 100% free of charge for both the final learners and the companies and public organisations where they are employed. The companies accessing the training are considered to be beneficiaries of indirect State aid of EUR 625 per trainee (50% of the catalogue value of the Cyber4AllSTAR service) under the general rules of the DIPIDIT 2021-2027 and the Digital Europe Programme.
What are the benefits for your organization?
✅ Improve protection against social engineering – identify fraud attempts and prevent attacks; ✅ Increase compliance with established international standarts and new cybersecurity regulations – the course assists organizations in building security strategies; ✅ Practical training based on real threats – developed by leading cybersecurity experts.
Join our training and build a robust defense against cyber threats!
