Name: Cryptography Essentials Course (Self-Paced)
Price: 1049.0 USD
Availability: InStock

This course includes

10 hours of project-based training from experts
Answers from real instructors
Retake for free within 1 year
Verified digital certificate of completion
Learn at an accredited institution
Credits: 1 CPE and 1 CEU

CompTIA and Security+ are trademarks of CompTIA. This course is not affiliated with or endorsed by CompTIA.

This course is self-paced. For live online or in-person instruction, take Cryptography Essentials Course.

Cryptography protects nearly everything IT and security professionals touch, yet few learn how it actually works. This foundational course teaches the core concepts in plain language, with no advanced math required.

Learners study symmetric and asymmetric encryption, hashing, digital signatures, and public key infrastructure, then connect them to TLS, encryption at rest, and VPNs. The course closes with common weaknesses such as poor key management and is aligned to the cryptography competencies of CompTIA Security+.

Tuition

Full Tuition

$1,049
Due before the class starts

This course includes

10 hours of project-based training from experts
Answers from real instructors
Retake for free within 1 year
Verified digital certificate of completion
Learn at an accredited institution
Credits: 1 CPE and 1 CEU

Learning Experience Highlights

Training from government‑experienced instructors

Receive instruction from subject‑matter experts who bring proven government experience.

Specialized for government & DoD

Courses that are regularly updated based on feedback and industry developments, ensuring versions are mapped to federal competencies.

The instructor was wonderful and so knowledgeable. The course materials were extremely relevant to what my job is. I feel like I can be better because of this class.
— 2025 student

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Hands-on quizzes and mini projects to test and reinforce concepts.

Earn a Certificate of Completion

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Cryptography Essentials Course (Self-Paced) Curriculum

What You'll Learn at a Glance

Explain the four core goals cryptography provides: confidentiality, integrity, authenticity, and non-repudiation.
Distinguish symmetric encryption from asymmetric encryption and explain when each is used.
Explain how a public and private key pair solves the key distribution problem.
Use a hash value to verify that a file or message has not been altered.
Explain why passwords are hashed rather than encrypted.
Describe how a digital signature is created and verified, and why it provides non-repudiation.
Explain what public key infrastructure solves and how a certificate authority establishes trust.
Interpret the fields in a digital certificate and explain what certificate revocation means.
Explain how TLS protects data in transit and why HTTPS depends on it.
Distinguish encryption at rest from encryption in transit and identify where each applies.
Describe, at a conceptual level, how a virtual private network protects traffic.
Identify weak or outdated cryptographic algorithms and explain why they remain a risk.
Recognize how poor key management can defeat otherwise strong encryption.

Course Syllabus

Download Syllabus PDF

Module 1: Why Cryptography Matters: Goals and Core Concepts

Lessons:
- What Problem Cryptography Actually Solves
- The Four Goals: Confidentiality, Integrity, Authenticity, Non-Repudiation
- Plaintext, Ciphertext, and the Idea of a Key
Applied activity: Learners review a short scenario describing a business email exchange and identify which of the four cryptographic goals is at risk if a specific control, encryption, a hash check, or a digital signature, is missing.

Module 2: Symmetric Encryption

Lessons:
- How Symmetric Encryption Works
- Common Symmetric Algorithms and Key Lengths
- Block Ciphers versus Stream Ciphers
- The Key Distribution Problem
Applied activity: Learners review a short scenario in which two remote offices need to exchange encrypted files and identify the practical problem with securely sharing a symmetric key over an untrusted channel, without yet knowing the solution covered in the next module.

Module 3: Asymmetric Encryption and Public Key Cryptography

Lessons:
- How Asymmetric Encryption Solves the Key Distribution Problem
- Public and Private Keys: What Each One Does
- Common Asymmetric Algorithms
- Symmetric versus Asymmetric: When Each Is Used
Applied activity: Learners review a short scenario describing an online purchase and identify which parts of the transaction likely use symmetric encryption and which use asymmetric encryption, and why.

Module 4: Hashing and Data Integrity

Lessons:
- What a Hash Function Does
- Properties of a Secure Hash Function
- Using Hashes to Verify Integrity
- Hashing Passwords: Why It Is Not Encryption
Applied activity: Learners are given a described file and its published hash value, then a second, slightly modified version of the file with a different hash value, and explain what the mismatch tells them.

Module 5: Digital Signatures and Non-Repudiation

Lessons:
- How a Digital Signature Is Created and Verified
- Why a Digital Signature Provides Non-Repudiation
- Digital Signatures versus Encryption: Not the Same Job
Applied activity: Learners review a short scenario in which a signed document is later disputed by its sender and explain, step by step, how the digital signature settles the dispute.

Module 6: Public Key Infrastructure and Certificates

Lessons:
- What Problem PKI Solves: Trusting a Public Key
- Certificate Authorities and the Chain of Trust
- What Is Inside a Digital Certificate
- Certificate Validation and Revocation
Applied activity: Learners review a short, described certificate chain, root certificate authority, intermediate authority, and website certificate, and explain what breaks if the intermediate certificate is removed from the chain.

Module 7: Cryptography in Practice: Protocols and Everyday Use Cases

Lessons:
- Encrypting Data in Transit: TLS and HTTPS
- Encrypting Data at Rest
- Virtual Private Networks and Secure Tunnels
- Where You Already Use Cryptography Every Day
Applied activity: Learners review a short description of an organization's data flows (files on a laptop, email in transit, a database) and identify whether encryption in transit, encryption at rest, or both, applies to each.

Module 8: Cryptographic Weaknesses and Common Attacks

Lessons:
- Weak and Outdated Algorithms
- Key Management Failures
- Common Attacks on Cryptographic Systems
Applied activity: Learners review a short scenario describing an organization that uses strong encryption but stores its keys in an insecure location and explain why the encryption does not actually protect the data in that case.

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