Overnight Hercules for Network Security

Companion guides

Free network security lab guides

Free, step-by-step lab guides for every chapter of Overnight Hercules for Network Security. Build the same Suricata and OpenSearch dashboards analysts use, on your own network. New here? Start with the prefabricated VM. You can be exploring real security data this evening.

  1. Chapter 1 Introducing Network Security Lock down the machine in front of you first. Check your antivirus and firewall, then find the open ports that act as unlocked doors.
  2. Chapter 2 Preparing to Secure Your Network Audit your router's settings, then stand up a network security monitoring lab. Use a ready-made VM to start in minutes, or build a full hardware sensor.
  3. Chapter 3 Understanding the Basics of TCP/IP Read what your network is actually saying. Explore flows, alerts, DNS, and HTTP records the way an analyst does during a forensic investigation.
  4. Chapter 4 Securing Your Endpoint Devices Build an inventory of every device on your network and a fingerprinting dashboard that exposes what each one is doing, so rogue devices stand out.
  5. Chapter 5 Evaluating the Perimeter Find out what the internet can reach. Map open ports on your edge devices and spot servers you didn't know you were running.
  6. Chapter 6 Detecting Data Theft Using NetFlow Compare this week's traffic with last week's, rank the heaviest talkers, and catch the unusual outbound transfers that signal exfiltration.
  7. Chapter 7 Harnessing Intrusion Detection Systems Turn raw Suricata alerts into a working triage dashboard with signature counts, geo maps, and the top offending IPs over IPv4 and IPv6.
  8. Chapter 8 Hunting for Malware Hunt for DNS tunnels and command-and-control traffic, then apply Sigma rules to detect malware behaviour automatically.
  9. Chapter 9 Recognizing Threats from Within Not every threat comes from outside. Watch east-west traffic between internal hosts and flag the lateral movement that signature-based tools miss.
  10. Chapter 10 Working Remote or on the Cloud Extend your monitoring past the home router. Track VPN sessions and keep an eye on the systems that live outside your walls.
  11. Chapter 11 Powering Up Your Skills Use AI assistants to write complex time-series queries in seconds, and learn how to prompt them precisely enough to trust the result.
  12. Chapter 12 Building Towards a Proactive Secure Future Move from reacting to anticipating. Ingest STIX2 threat-intelligence feeds and match known indicators of compromise against your own traffic.