Ethical Hacking Foundations & Network Security

About this course

This course features Coursera Coach! A smarter way to learn with interactive, real-time conversations that help you test your knowledge, challenge assumptions, and deepen your understanding as you progress through the course. Build a strong foundation in ethical hacking by setting up a secure penetration testing environment and exploring the fundamentals of web technologies and HTML injection. You'll gain practical experience with Kali Linux, virtualization, Linux administration, and essential web security concepts while understanding how attackers exploit vulnerabilities and how security professionals identify them responsibly. Your journey begins with an introduction to the course, learning resources, and lab preparation before moving into a complete Kali Linux setup using VirtualBox on Windows and macOS. You'll configure virtual machines, troubleshoot installation issues, manage Linux files, permissions, packages, and user accounts, and become comfortable navigating a professional penetration testing environment. Next, you'll learn HTML fundamentals, including document structure, tags, elements, attributes, forms, and semantic page components. Building on this knowledge, you'll explore HTML injection concepts through hands-on labs using Beebox, Burp Suite, Dirbuster, and iFrame-based attacks, understanding how web vulnerabilities are identified and analyzed in controlled environments. This course is ideal for aspiring ethical hackers, cybersecurity students, IT professionals, web developers, and technology enthusiasts who want to understand web application security. Basic computer literacy is recommended, but no prior ethical hacking experience is required. The course is designed at a Beginner difficulty level. By the end of the course, you will be able to configure a secure ethical hacking lab, navigate Kali Linux confidently, understand core HTML concepts, use industry-standard security tools, identify HTML injection vulnerabilities, and perform foundational web application security testing in controlled environments.