The European Digital Innovation Hub Thrace (EDIH Trakia) has launched three more online training services, namely – the Penetration Testing Fundamentals course – service No. 18, the Web Hacking Fundamentals course – service No. 19, and the Offensive Pentesting course – service No. 21 from the EDIH Trakia’ catalogue of free services, designed for individuals and organisations who want to build key skills to protect against cyber attacks. The courses are 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” (PNIIDIT 2021-2027).
The lecturer of the courses Kremena Ivanova has experience as a system administrator and network maintenance small and medium business. Most of her experience is based on working with Cisco equipment – routers, switches and new generation firewalls. She holds Cisco certifications in Security and Networking and has over 10 years of experience in the technical support of network devices and applications in medium and enterprise businesses.
Access to the services are 100% free of charge for both the final learners and the companies and public organisations that employ them. Companies accessing one or more of the training courses are considered to be beneficiaries of indirect State aid of between EUR 500 and EUR 750 per course, per trainee (50% of the catalogue value of the relevant Cyber4AllSTAR service) under the general rules of the PNIIDIT 2021-2027 and the Digital Europe Programme.
The timetable for the delivery of these courses provides for monthly editions until the end of December 2025. The duration of each course is 32 teaching hours of which 16 classroom hours – during or after working hours, with flexible organisation of practical assignments according to the needs of public sector clients and small and medium-sized businesses. The specific dates are specified each month as the groups are filled with the relevant organisations and their employees who have requested to participate in the specific course.
For access to the courses, companies and institutions fill in an application form for access to the services of EDIH Trakia, and individual learners – a registration form to confirm individual attendance in the specific course (links are available to the description of each individual course), in which registration form learners reflect their desired month for inclusion in a group and indicate individual contacts for contact with the teacher of the discipline.
There are similar eligibility requirements for the other two courses offered online that were announced in March 2025, namely “Cyber Defense” course (Service #20) and “AI & HPC” course (Service #22).
Course “Fundamentals of penetration testing” – № 18
Pilot edition will be on 9, 10, 14 and 15 April 2025
Learning objectives and scope:
- The course is designed to provide a deeper understanding of network structures and protection methods. We will focus on basic information security techniques and security testing of networks and end users.
Training highlights:
- Computer network trends and threats – basic terms and skills, such as types of attacks and vulnerabilities, data protection and countermeasures
- Fundamentals of cyber defense – basic principles in defense, Risk Management, Disaster Response, Incident responses.
- Networks and their protection – basic elements and structure of networks and threats to them, network segmentation, network protection trends, use of cryptography, AAA and rights management
- Ethical Hacking, Penetration Testing, and Bug Hunting Fundamentals – what is ethical hacking, pentesting, and bug hunting. Passive, active information gathering, network scanning, network security monitoring and analysis tools
How to confirm your individual participation in the course:
Course „Web Hacking Fundamentals“ – № 19
Pilot edition will be on 23, 24, 28 and 29 April 2025
Learning objectives and scope:
- The course provides basic knowledge and principles for operating web platforms (applications). The training will cover basic application scanning and vulnerability scanning concepts, an introduction to the OWASP Top 10 and how to identify and avoid web application risks.
Training highlights:
- Analyzing web vulnerabilities
- Exploiting basis vulnerabilities
- Exploiting web servers – working with Burp Suitе
- Web application detection and scanning
- Exploiting Web Applications with Broken Authentication and Path Traversal
How to confirm your individual participation in the course:
Course “Offensive Pentesting“ – № 21
Pilot edition will be in May 2025
Learning objectives and scope:
- The course provides basic knowledge of techniques and techniques for passive and active data collection, use of specialized scanning software, exploiting vulnerabilities in the wireless network. The course focuses entirely on the offensive side of cybersecurity.
Training highlights:
- Basic steps in Pentesting
- Instruments for testing the security
- Introduction to MITRE ATT&CK
- Basic techniques for Denial of Service
- Using Metasploit
- Practices for generating cybersecurity reports
How to confirm your individual participation in the course:
