Free
Course

Prompt Engineering: Generative AI for Malware & Social Engineering

Explore ethical hacking techniques to fight malware and social engineering. Learn how generative AI enhances threat detection and prevention.

  • Skill level

    Intermediate
  • Time to complete

    Approx. 1 hour
  • Certificate of completion

    Yes

About this course

In the dynamic digital landscape, cybersecurity is more important than ever. Malicious actors are well aware that people are often the weakest link in an organization's cybersecurity posture. Ethical hackers commit significant effort into penetration testing and strategizing to combat malware and social engineering efforts executed by threat actors. This course journeys deep into the techniques and methodologies employed by ethical hackers to uncover malware and educate users in the ongoing battle against social engineering and how generative artificial intelligence (AI) can assist them in this pursuit. You'll start by exploring the types of malware and social engineering principles and techniques. With this foundation, you'll explore how generative AI can be used to help detect malware and social engineering attacks. You'll discover potential damage that can result from such attacks along with countermeasures that can be taken and then you'll explore proactive efforts to train users about social engineering attacks. You'll investigate how to use generative AI and prompt engineering to counter malware and social engineering, and you'll proceed to explore how malware and social engineering evolve over time. Lastly, you'll examine some real-world case studies that feature malware and social engineering attacks.

Learning objectives

  • Discover the key concepts covered in this course
  • Describe the various types of malware including viruses, worms, trojans, and ransomware
  • Outline the principles and techniques of social engineering

How it works

Expert-led videos

In this course, you'll watch videos created by industry-leading experts for some of the biggest tech companies in the world. They'll cover key concepts, go through sample applications, prepare you for industry certifications, and more. Watch on any device — whenever and wherever you want — to learn at your own pace.

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How To Get Hands-on Hacking Practice (Without Breaking The Law)

Cory Stieg
Oct 4, 2022

Much like learning how to do a backflip or training to become a firefighter, you can’t just practice hacking anywhere — you need a safe and controlled setting, otherwise you could cause harm to yourself and others.

Ethical hacking is when a programmer has permission to use their technical skills to intentionally break into computer systems and access sensitive data to find common vulnerabilities within code that other people have written. The difference between ethical and unethical hacking usually comes down to consent and intent; a malicious hacker would use these same skills (without permission) to steal information or assets for financial gain or cause other harm.

To be clear, accessing data in a system without authorization is illegal, and one of the key principles of ethical hacking is to obey the law. So if you’re interested in having a career that involves hacking, like a Penetration Tester or Security Analyst, you might be wondering how you can get hands-on practice without, you know, breaking the law.

Here are some (definitely legal) resources that you can use to gain hands-on ethical hacking experience without putting yourself or others in danger.

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    Earn a document you can share with your network to prove that you’ve completed this course.