
Only Once a Year
You’ll only learn things that will be crucial and most relevant in the following 2021. We run the training only once a year, always with the newest content. .
By Paula Januszkiewicz · Sami Laiho · CQURE Academy Experts
Upgrade your cybersecurity skills with The Advanced Windows Security Course – our flagship certified online course designed by industry experts for ambitious cybersecurity geeks who want to perform at the highest level in the upcoming year!
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Find yourself in the elite in 2021
Outperform your expectations and get noticed by employers in 2021 with this certified online course by CQURE.
Designed by award-winning experts who work at the cutting edge of the security industry, our signature six-week course for intermediate and advanced professionals has practicality at its core.
Over 12 intense modules, you’ll acquire the key skills, tools and techniques to stand up to threats and secure your Windows operating system in 2021, however and wherever you are working.
Cyber-crime, predicted to cost $6 trillion annually next year, could soon be the world’s third-largest economy. Staying secure means taking proactive action to protect your digital estate.
This course will train you to think like a bad actor so you can identify and resolve vulnerabilities in your system before they are exploited.
We take a deep dive into the most dangerous threats and clue you in on the configuration mistakes that could result in data or financial loss.
As more people make the switch to a cybersecurity career in 2021, make sure your skills set you apart.
Earning a 2021 Windows Security Master certificate is more than a personal achievement; it lets the world know that you are serious about leveling up your skills and advancing your career.
This course happens ONLY once a year, is never the same and is limited to 200 students who have to apply to take part.
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How is this course different from others?
You’ll only learn things that will be crucial and most relevant in the following 2021. We run the training only once a year, always with the newest content. .
You’ll skip the fluff and go straight to the advanced stuff. The pace is quite intense, so expect a smoke coming out of your ears.
The training is pretty hands-on, because it has been designed by passionate practitioners and obsessive researchers from CQURE Team.
We’ll bring a bunch of experts on board with Paula Januszkiewicz and Sami Laiho among teachers and the hosts of the program.
Course Formula
You’ll join our 2-hour long live classes on a special interactive platform – happening twice a week at 7PM CET (10AM PST / 1PM EST).
You’ll go through 12 modules in 6 weeks. We’re not fluffing around, you’ve been warned.
We organise this course only once a year, in its last quarter. Every next edition is updated with new tools and challenges.
After every class you’ll be able to ask questions.
We’ve prepared for you slides, extra materials and homework for each session.
You’ll get a full year of online access to all the recordings (counted from the first class).
During the course you’ll have access to a special training platform where you can safely test your hacks.
You’ll become a member of a closed Facebook group, where you can not only share your challenges and geeky jokes… but also network.
You’ll receive an official CQURE certificate “Windows Security Master 2021″ after passing the final exam. Yes, there will be a final exam. And 24hrs counting towards your CPE’s.
Course Syllabus
Module 1
~ November 24, 2020 ~
This module involves various attacks on identity, mitigations, and risk assessment factors. You will learn the techniques used by modern malware. Especially for ransomware, the launch process itself has changed over the years to reach its final form – it is important to know how to prevent it. You will become familiar with important aspects of cloud security including easy to use solutions, integration with the current environment, and monitoring tools.
Module 2
~ November 26, 2020 ~
After successful delivery, malicious code exploits a vulnerability or misconfiguration to execute code on the victim’s system. Fileless malwareuses system tools and in-memory execution techniques to do its damage. There are many mechanisms that, if properly configured, significantly reduce attack scope. So, every red teamer and blue teamer should know the modern hacking techniques that are commonly used to get any personal or company information. During this Module, CQURE Experts will show you the malware in detail and its deepest secrecy. We will discuss Office suite macros (both VBA and XLM), malicious PDFs, Living Off The Land Binaries and Scripts, and many more techniques to know more about fileless malware.
Module 3
~ December 1, 2020 ~
Would you like to know more about troubleshooting the health of the PKI infrastructure and how to validate if it is in a healthy state? CQURE Experts show you how to create proper modern certification templates that can serve typical web servers or other application. We will go through the implementation of the code signing technique, using a modern approach to code signing from 3rd party application.
Module 4
~ December 3, 2020 ~
In this Module our Experts will take a deep dive into penetration testing on Azure and other cloud technologies, for instance AWS. We will show you how to perform penetration tests in the Cloud environment in 2021 and we will explain how typical misconfigurations may allow the attacker to gain access to your cloud resources. During our session the following topics will be taken into consideration:
Module 5
~ December 8, 2020 ~
In 2020+ the most important security measure in enterprises is whitelisting” says Gartner and multiple other agencies. In Windows this means you need to implement AppLocker. Join this workshop where one of the leading experts in Windows OS and Security, Sami Laiho, shows you how to effectively and securely deploy AppLocker in your environment. Sami has deployed AppLocker for tens of companies ranging from one-man to 500000 seat companies. If you think deploying AppLocker will need new hires you got it wrong – it will make you work less!
Module 6
~ December 10, 2020 ~
During this Module, our Experts will discuss Windows privilege escalation techniques. Although times, when everyone was using admin privileges (to do basically anything), are long gone, hackers still know how to elevate privileges and get local admin. The trick is to carefully inspect system and target elevated processes, services, and users. In this module, we will focus on ACLs, tokens and privileges to understand how various system checks are bypassed. We will cover UAC bypasses, Time-of-check-time-of-use bugs, insecure permissions, logic flaws, and many more!
Module 7
~ December 15, 2020 ~
Monitoring is a critical component of cloud security and management. Unfortunately, its complexity causes the “reactive mode”. This time our Experts show you how to avoid the inexcusable mistakes in 2021. Join us during this module to understand what should be avoided and how to operate in a secure way to ensure that critical assets are protected.
Module 8
~ December 17, 2020 ~
It sounds like a Holiday Module, but it is not! This module will be a very technical trip, as we will learn how to build custom phishing campaigns with the available toolkit while using a custom approach. During the session, you will see our scenarios from real-life cases and, then, you will understand (Holiday) phishing in detail.
Module 9
~ January 12, 2021 ~
Our Expert, Michael Grafnetter, will guide you through all stages of a pentest targeting Azure AD, from the recon phase, through credential-based attacks like password spraying, pass-the-PRT, MFA bypass, and app credentials to post-exploitation techniques. Attacks against a hybrid environment and cross-premises takeovers will also be covered.
Module 10
~ January 14, 2021 ~
FIDO2 CTAP and W3C Web Authentication enable users to leverage common devices to easily authenticate to online services in both mobile and desktop environments. These standards include support for security keys (e.g. YubiKey, Feitian, or Crayonic) and for platform authenticators (e.g. Windows Hello, Apple Face ID, or Touch ID). After this Module, attendees become familiar with the technical details of FIDO2 authentication and aware of its limitations and possible attack vectors.
Module 11
~ January 19, 2021 ~
We will start by looking through the eyes of an attacker and how his/hers actions manifest in IIS. The session will explore monitoring tips and tricks, which will be useful in detecting anomalies and reacting appropriately. Finally, we’ll have a look at some hardening elements that could completely prevent the attack or at least slow it down.
Module 12
~ January 21, 2021 ~
In this session, we will focus on two methods of secure web application publishing to the internet. Application Proxy is a feature of Azure AD that enables users to access on-premises web applications from a remote client. Windows Server also contains a built-in Web Application Proxy. We will be discussing security aspects of these solutions, like adding multi-factor authentication to applications that do not support it out-of-the-box, translating claims-based authentication to Kerberos, publishing apps without having a public IP address, or protective measures against DDoS attacks.
Click here to browse the modules:
PLEASE NOTE: There will be an online final exam covering all 12 modules. To receive an official CQURE certificate “Windows Security Master 2021” you have to get at least 70% of the answers right. We highly recommend that you don’t leave the revision until the last minute. 😉
Your teachers
Paula Januszkiewicz, MVP, MCT and Microsoft Reginal Director has 15 years of experience in the cybersecurity field, performing penetration tests, architecture consulting, trainings and seminars. She has performed hundreds of security projects, including those for governmental organizations and big enterprises, at the same time being a top speaker and a keynote speaker at many well-known conferences, including Microsoft Ignite (rated No 1 Speaker among 1100 speakers at a conference with 26000 attendees), RSA (in 2017 in San Francisco her session was one of the 5 hottest sessions), Black Hat, CyberCrime etc., where she is often rated as No 1 speaker. Her presentations gather thousands of people. In 2019, Paula’s presentation was voted best of Black Hat Asia 2019 Briefings!
Sami Laiho is one of the world’s leading professionals in the Windows OS. Sami has been working
with and teaching OS troubleshooting, management and security for more than 15 years. Sami’s
session was evaluated as the best session in TechEd North America 2014, TechEd Europe 2014 and
TechEd Australia 2013. Sami’s session at Ignite 2015 was evaluated as #2 out of 1000+ sessions
and all of his four sessions were in the top 15 sessions on the Windows track.
Mike Jankowski-Lorek, PhD, is a Cloud Solutions & Machine Learning Expert at CQURE. He is data scientist, solution architect, developer and consultant. Mike designs and implements solutions for Databases, data analysis and natural language processing. He is interested in Big data, High Availability and real-time analytics especially when combined with machine learning and artificial intelligence or NLP. Mike has recently defended his PhD thesis in which he combined academic knowledge, professional experience and strong technical skills! Holder of many IT certificates such as MCT, MCP and MCDBA.
Krystian Zieja is a professional Infrastructure and Database Consultant at CQURE with almost 20 years of extensive experience in designing IT solutions. His practice spans from teaching Oracle Courses in OAI at University, to providing services for big public and consulting companies serving clients from four continents. Being a holder of numerous IT certificates such as OCP, MCSE, MCDBA and CISP, he is highly skilled in management as well as in programming SQL and NOSQL databases.
Michael is an expert on Active Directory security who works as a cybersecurity consultant, trainer, and researcher. He is best known as the author of the open-source Directory Services Internals (DSInternals) PowerShell module and Thycotic Weak Password Finder, tools used by security auditors and penetration testers worldwide. He holds a master’s degree in Software Engineering and is a former Microsoft MVP.
Artur Wojtkowski is CQURE Expert with over 10 years of experience gained in many industries, mainly in telecommunication, banking and insurance sector. He has excellent skills in the area of infrastructure, web and mobile application penetration testing. He received the OSCE certification recently! During his career his tasks also included: performing social engineering tests, security code review, performance testing, security management in telecommunication companies, ISO 27001 implementation, administration of SIEM and PKI systems. Member of (ISC)2 and (ISC)2 Poland.
Adrian Denkiewicz is CQURE Expert with over 8 years of experience as Penetration Tester, Cybersecurity Specialist and Software Developer. He has worked for financial, ecommerce, and semiconductor industry. Adrian performed dozens of penetration tests and security reviews cooperating with teams from all over. Adrian recently received the OSCP and OSWP certification; however – his ambitions are wider so he is working hard to develop his special skills even more!
Miłosz Piasecki is CQURE’s prodigy Cybersecurity Specialist and aspiring team leader with his main focus being programming, networking and most of all Windows security. Miłosz is an enthusiastic, hard-working individual with an interest in social engineering, penetration testing, cryptography and virtualization-based technologies. At CQURE his is also responsible for demos design and creation, building virtual labs and developing scripts. Privately Miłosz is interested in social influence mechanisms, enjoys travelling, skiing, motorcycling and archery.
Who Is It For
This program is for you, if you want to level up and become key expert in your company (or even in your field). We promise to challenge your ways of thinking and executing.
Attendee needs to have general fluency in Windows environment (including security skills, penetration testing etc.) Active Directory related knowledge is required. Take the quiz to see where are you at.
If you are a newbie you can still apply, but the program WILL NOT cover the basics — so it might be really challenging for you to get in or to keep up with the group.
What CQURE Academy Students say
Milan Racko
IT Security Specialist
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AWSC18 helped me to better understand what are the security risks, how to identify them and how to protect against them primary in Microsoft on premise and cloud environments. I earned valuable knowledge and also it helped me to develop our security department in my team. I am looking forward for another courses from CQURE Academy.
Jack Perry
Security Principal Consultant | Presidio
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All of their classes are based on their real world experience with the products, not just the typical Official Curriculum style classes that teach you things for an exam, but that you will never use. You’ll find that all of the material you’ll learn in the class will be used, at some point, in your security career.
Martin Weber
CTO | IT.innovation.4U GmbH
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Totally professional, total great stuff, in-depth knowledge and a perfect Learning Atmosphere! I like it! Thanks so much for sharing your experience and knowledge!
Marek Chmel
SQL Server DBA | AT&T
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All of their classes are based on their real world experience with the products, not just the typical Official Curriculum style classes that teach you things for an exam, but that you will never use. You’ll find that all of the material you’ll learn in the on-premise will be used, at some point, in your security career.
Paweł Partyka
Azure Security Infrastructure Consultant | Microsoft
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During AWSC course I have learned about various attack techniques against credentials, secrets and Windows OS. I also obtained knowledge on mitigation possibilities. The course help me to have more confidence in my cyber security skills and have more meaningful discussion about the threats with my customers.
Doru-Catalin Togea
Information Security Advisor | Norwegian Police
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As it also happened before, Paula Januszkiewicz knows how to blow your mind. As great athletes make their discipline look easy when you watch them perform, so Paula makes Windows purr like a little kitten. Even though I am fully aware of how much I still don’t know, after a course such as this Windows is not mysterious anymore. This is a great feeling.
Kamil Więcek
IT Expert | ING Bank Śląski
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I’ve recently attended a training held by CQURE. It was PACKED with knowledge and tools. Of course another course not everything was discussed in details (lack of time)on-premise but CQURE team delivered a great value within just a few hours. I was a student not so long ago and I wish that our universities were teaching as efficiently as CQURE does.
Styrk Finne
Senior Professional System Engineer | CSC Norway
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We have learned a lot about IIS, hacking and much much more. Our motivation has increased during this course and of course great interest in your work Paula. Impressed with your enthusiastic energic way of presenting.
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Applications are closed
We’ll be taking on board 200 students only. Admission is selective. We prioritize: your skills and professional achievements, but also your attitude and how you can contribute to the group — so that we all can learn from each other. Good luck!
Frequently Asked Questions
This course is for geeks who want to become advanced Windows security experts. If you want to set yourself (and your company) apart from your competition, this is the course for you. You must already be fluent in the Windows environment (including security skills, penetration testing etc.). Active Directory related knowledge is required. We already have a great group of approved applicants from the Microsoft Ignite Conference where we did a soft launch of this course. Including:
If you are not sure if you qualify for the course, take the quiz to see where you stand. If you score above 12 points, you should apply here.
In order to qualify for the course, you need to complete the application form here. The application is FREE 🙂 In the first days of November, we will review the applications. If you qualify, we will email you straight after we approve your application. If you do not qualify, we will also inform you by email. If we need more information from you, we may ask you to schedule a short interview with a member of our team. After we approve your application, you will have some time to submit your payment. You can pay online (recommended) or contact us to pay via your company payables department.
Well.. not exactly. You must pass the final exam to receive a certification (it is a part of the course so no additional payment is required). To pass the exam, you must answer 70% of the questions correctly. When you pass the exam, you will receive a CQURE Academy Certificate – “Windows Security Master 2021.”
Once your application is approved and you pay your tuition, this is what you will get access to:
CQURE Academy design CQURE Labs are a great battlefield! You will learn how to hack and secure in a safe environment. Virtual lab can be accessed from anywhere where there is an Internet connection. After login, you will have full access to preconfigured virtual machines (with great performance) where you will be able to attack different targets, search for misconfigurations, search for the evidence and other interesting and very practical activities. During the training you will be given certain tasks to do at home and because CQURE Lab can be accessed anytime, during the day and night – you plan your activities by yourself, depending on your availability and mood! Technically CQURE Lab is a set of virtual machines available through RDP connection. You will obtain your own username, password and connection parameters and you can connect to the lab from any RDP client.
You get full access to all Live Session video recordings. We highly encourage you to participate in the live sessions so you can interact with us and the other students live online. You will learn best when we help you work through your questions. Keep up with the course flow we have designed will help you hold yourself accountable to complete the course in a timely manner. That being said, we understand life and work happen. That is why you will have access to all of the material for 12 months.
We are not just a training company. All of our experts spend 60% of their time working as consultants on client cases around the world. We split the rest of our time evenly between research and teaching. This allows us to stay up to date on cutting edge security knowledge, skills and tools that other training institutes lack. This rare. Every year’s course will be completely rebuilt to keep up with emerging security trends. Finally, we believe the best way to make you learn is to keep the course fun, social, an interactive. We are cool geeks 🙂 Paula is widely recognized as the best speaker and trainer at international security conferences. At the Microsoft Ignite 2015, unofficial polling marked her as the best speaker (no, we did not ‘hack’ the results!).