Cyber Security courses and traineeships
See yourself in cyber
Career program for NSW students
NSW Department of Education schools can register for the 2024 career program. The next event is on the 20 November.
TAFE
Introduction to Cyber Security micro-skill - watch videos, hear from experts, read reports and use interactive quizzes to help you learn. NSW students and teachers can access this course for free.
Certificate III in Information Technology - specialise in cyber security, game design, IT networking, IT support or web design. Access Certificate III in Information Technology ICT30120
Understanding cyber threats
Use threat modelling to identify, communicate and understand threats. Teacher notes are provided. This module suits Digital Technologies students in years 9-10 and computing courses in years 11 and/or 12.
Access Understanding cyber threats
University degree
Learn the behavioural science behind online fraud and advanced hacking and think dynamically to respond to cyber threats.
Information Security courses
Learn about network and operational security and specialise in preventing, detecting and combating cyber threats.
Microsoft traineeship
Prepare for cyber roles such as junior software developer, systems engineer, cyber security specialist or cyber crime analyst. This 2-year program combines paid, on-the-job experience and supervision with formal training.
Cyber Academy
Deloitte, TAFE NSW and Wollongong University combine to provide this unique degree program with an earn-as-you-learn apprenticeship.
Access Cyber Academy
CyberCX Academy
This is a paid, permanent full-time training opportunity designed to launch your career in cyber security. No prior experience is necessary.
Access CyberCX Academy
ASD CyberEXP
An interactive online program to take you through a day in the life of cyber specialist experts working in the Australian Signals Directorate. The experience is based on real-life scenarios and provides a taste of what it is like on the front lines of security.
Access ASD CyberEXP
History of cyber security
Secrets shared in WWII
Before WWII, the Swiss had the commercial version of the Enigma machine that was sold to banks. So when World War II started, the allies did have a bit of a head start because they roughly knew how the German Enigma worked.
Watch this video to hear from Mike Pritchard about this machine and how it works with a set of rotor from the original machine used in WWII. Visit Australian Spy Museum for this and more historical cyber security information.
Video transcript
Transcript
00:00:00
So welcome and in this video, we're going to have a bit of a closer look at how these machines actually work.
00:00:06
If you would open the lid, what's inside and how does it actually create that secret message?
00:00:14
These two machines are of a type called the Swiss Namer NEMA. You can have a brief read about it on Wikipedia, or if you want to know a lot more, you can go to cryptomuseum.com and there they'll they have the whole back story on the.
00:00:27
How it was built and how it created its secrets, but in a nutshell.
00:00:31
Before World War 2, the Swiss had the commercial version of the Enigma machine.
00:00:35
The one that was sold to banks and other people.
00:00:38
And that machine was sold to many countries around the world, including the banks in England.
00:00:43
So when World War 2 started, the allies did have a bit of a head start because they roughly knew how the German Enigma worked.
00:00:50
So these machines were built by the Swiss because they found out that not only the Germans who sold them their enigmas were reading their secret codes, but the allies were as well.
00:00:59
They took everything they knew about the Enigma machine and they built this.
00:01:04
Version called Neima, which was proprietary to Switzerland.
00:01:08
It was only ever kept within Swiss borders, so it was very, very secret.
00:01:12
Inside though, it's fundamentally working the same way as an Enigma machine.
00:01:17
It's an electromechanical cipher machine, and what I mean by that is when you press a key.
00:01:24
You're not only making the rotors turnover through a mechanical action, you're also changing the wiring inside so that when you press a key.
00:01:32
A different lamp lights up each time, so on this machine, for instance, if I press the letter Q up here in this corner.
00:01:38
Notice on the lamp board in front, each time I press AQ.
00:01:43
A different result comes up.
00:01:45
And that's a combination of the electrical signal going through the machine to light up the lamps and the mechanical bit.
00:01:52
Is that every time I press a key it's triggering the rotors to turn over, which changes the wiring maze inside the machine.
00:02:02
It's literally dynamically changing the wiring in the machine to result in a different lamp every time.
00:02:07
That's pretty cool, right?
00:02:09
How does it work?
00:02:11
Let's open one up and we'll have a.
00:02:13
But before we get to that, I just want to show you the essence of how a rotor works by itself.
00:02:18
This is a genuine World War 2 Enigma machine rota, and you can see.
00:02:25
It actually has an enormous number of parts inside here, 26 little moving spring connections on one side, 26 pins on the other side, a whole lot of screws and things to hold.
00:02:35
Together by itself.
00:02:37
A very complex piece of kit.
00:02:39
But it does one thing.
00:02:41
And what it does is, as the electrical signal goes through the machine, it goes through these rotors.
00:02:47
And it will enter the rotor on one pin and inside the rotor.
00:02:52
Is this thing called the rotor core and the rotor core is a whole mess of little wires?
00:02:58
That take the electrical signal going in one side and maps it to a different letter on the other side.
00:03:04
In other words, it might come in as an A and it comes out the other side as an R or a P or an L or whatever it may be.
00:03:11
And those settings are different on each rotors.
00:03:14
So before World War 2, when the Polish military intelligence got hold of some Enigma machines and information about the Enigma, the first thing they needed to understand to begin the decrypt process was to know what is the letter mapping.
00:03:29
Inside the rotors.
00:03:30
And what they did was they got one of these and they just like, I'm gonna do now, they made-up a simple little battery box.
00:03:38
With about four volts of power, same as the Enigma machine, and they connected.
00:03:43
A pin on one side to the other, and what I'm going to do here is a simple.
00:03:49
Simulation of their experiment is I'm just going to run a little electrical lamp around all of the connections on the other side until I find out what letter.
00:03:58
There it is.
00:03:59
What letter IT maps to on the other side, right?
00:04:02
So for each rotor that you capture, you would have to test every connection like this.
00:04:08
In order to figure out the letter mapping.
00:04:11
So let's just.
00:04:12
You've captured the enemy's machine and you now know the letter mapping inside the rotors.
00:04:17
You still have two other challenges.
00:04:19
One is you have to know which order the rotors go in the machine, and two you have to know the starting position for the rotors.
00:04:27
If you don't know those things, you're not going to be able to decipher the message. And so one of the biggest secrets of World War 2 was that at Bletchley Park.
00:04:35
In England, they came up with intelligence program called Ultra.
00:04:39
It was secret until 30 years after the war in 1974, when the British finally revealed that through the Ultra Intelligence program, they'd been able to read the German Enigma messages all along.
00:04:52
Amazing. They kept that secret for 30 years.
00:04:54
So.
00:04:55
Back to what they were actually trying to do.
00:04:59
They had previously captured an inmate so they knew what the Enigma wiring was. The challenge was to be able to work out what order they went in the machine and on the German Enigma machine. There was also a plugboard down the front that had to work out the.
00:05:11
Settings.
00:05:12
To do that.
00:05:12
They built the machine, called the bomb.
00:05:15
But if we open up the machine here, let's get a bit of a better understanding how it works.
00:05:20
When I press a key as I mentioned, there's a wire that links each key through a battery box.
00:05:26
Into the rotors.
00:05:28
It then hits the end of the.
00:05:30
There's a thing there called a reflector, which then turns the signal back around.
00:05:34
It goes back through the roof as a second time, and of course we know through what we just saw that it scrambles.
00:05:40
The letters as it goes back through and finally it hits a lamp on the other side, and that of course.
00:05:46
Is what gives us this result here.
00:05:48
So every time I'm pressing that letter Q.
00:05:51
I'm getting a different result.
00:05:54
If I unlock the rotors.
00:05:58
You can see here.
00:06:01
That I've got a set of them.
00:06:03
They're round. Each one, of course, been a rotor, a wheel, and I have a choice of four out of 6.
00:06:09
That I can put on the rotor spindle and they can go on in any order.
00:06:15
So from the point of view of the person trying to break the code, the developer problem you've got is which one of these six rotors did my enemy pick?
00:06:23
Which order that they picked them on and what was their starting position? So the Germans might put on, you know.
00:06:29
Roder #1.
00:06:30
Roder #5.
00:06:32
They then might pick #6.
00:06:35
And then they might pick #1.
00:06:39
They then go back into the machine.
00:06:42
They're locked in a position.
00:06:47
They then set the keyword at the beginning.
00:06:49
The.
00:06:50
Message setting session.
00:06:53
Lock the rotors in position and now.
00:06:55
Off to the races.
00:06:57
So I hope that gives you.
00:06:58
A bit of a better understanding of what is an electromechanical cipher machine like Enigma or like these namers.
00:07:05
How do they actually work internally and how do they generate the secret code?
00:07:09
Have a look at the other video.
00:07:11
To actually see a secret message being created and then decrypted on the second machine.
00:07:17
Thanks again for your time.
Sending encrypted messages during WWII
How did they use an enigma machine to talk to another machine so you can send an excypted message to another side of the word? This process uses ciphers so your message is kept secret.
Watch Mike Pritcahrd explain how this was done. Visit Australian Spy Museum for this and more historical cyber security information.
Video transcript
Audio file
Transcript
00:00:00
So welcome and in this video, we're going to go through the process of creating an encrypted message.
00:00:06
Our first cipher machine and then deciphering it on our second machine.
00:00:12
I mentioned before that when you want to send an encrypted message, both machines have to be set up absolutely identically. Otherwise, the person on the receiving end is going to result with complete gibberish, right?
00:00:23
Are two machines.
00:00:25
Identically that.
00:00:27
You need to have selected the same rotors. They need to be on the spindle.
00:00:32
In the same order and the letters have to line up.
00:00:35
So the key that's visible across the top here has to be the same on both machines now to come up with a topical key. We've got 10 letters that we can use and a handy 10 letter word and one that's very significant today in cybersecurity is the word.
00:00:51
And thinking about it.
00:00:53
It's one of.
00:00:53
Most bedeviling problems if you read the headlines or kids if you're interested in cyber security, you'll know that ransomware.
00:01:00
Is when the bad guys get onto your computer and they encrypt all of your information and then they hold you hostage, you have to pay money to decrypt it.
00:01:09
So unfortunately Ciphering can be used for good purposes and it can be used by criminals as well.
00:01:14
But ransomware makes for a very topical key for.
00:01:18
Our message that ties together.
00:01:20
And.
00:01:20
Some.
00:01:21
Things that are happening out there.
00:01:23
In the world of cyber.
00:01:24
So we've got the same rotors set up on the spindle in the same order with the word ransomware set up as the key on both.
00:01:32
What message are we going to send from one machine to another?
00:01:35
A word that I like to use.
00:01:37
Is the country, town or city rather wollenbong 10 letters?
00:01:44
Wo double lo Ng.
00:01:45
And if you want to follow along with this, write down the word this way.
00:01:51
So that Wollongong is broken up into two five letter groups.
00:01:55
Why do we break up when we're sending ciphered messages?
00:01:59
Do we break them up into?
00:02:00
Letter groups.
00:02:01
Well, there's two reasons really.
00:02:02
The first one is that it's easier for radio operators to remember and quickly send five letter groups, but very significantly with enciphered messages encrypted messages.
00:02:12
It's a way to break up the shape of the words in a message.
00:02:16
You see, if your message is intercepted by the other side, it's much easier for them to guess the contents of your message.
00:02:23
If they can see the word shapes, but if you break up all the words into five letter groups.
00:02:27
They can't tell.
00:02:29
They make it a lot harder for them, so let's go ahead now and on our first machine.
00:02:34
We're going to punch in Wo Double Lo and get the enciphered result.
00:02:39
And then we'll put in Ngong our second five letter group and we'll get the encrypted result out.
00:02:45
So here we go.
00:02:49
Gives us.
00:02:52
Apo.
00:02:54
Gives us an M.
00:02:57
L.
00:02:59
Gives us an E our second L interestingly gives us a.
00:03:05
And then, O the second time.
00:03:08
Gives us an I.
00:03:09
Isn't that interesting?
00:03:10
Both times we put in an O, we got a different result and two else together gave us a different result as well.
00:03:17
So PMEDI, now we'll do our second five letter group.
00:03:22
From Wollongong, the lettuce NGONGON.
00:03:29
Gives us an.
00:03:31
G gives us a V.
00:03:36
O gives us ay in.
00:03:41
Gives us AD and then the last time we type in the letter G.
00:03:46
We get ad again. Interesting, right?
00:03:49
Different results each time.
00:03:56
WOLLO became PMEDI.
00:04:01
And Ng Ong became svydd.
00:04:06
That is our encrypted message PMEDISVYDD.
00:04:10
And now we'll send that to the people who've got the second machine. We could send it via motorcycle Courier.
00:04:17
We could attach it to the leg of a.
00:04:18
Believe it or not, in a pigeon message tube, but more commonly we would.
00:04:22
Over the radio.
00:04:24
So let's move to our second machine with this encrypted message, we'll type that in and we'll get the clear text back out.
00:04:32
So here we are on our second machine.
00:04:35
As I said before, it's set up identically to the first one, and we're going to.
00:04:39
Put in P.
00:04:41
Which gives us Aw.
00:04:44
M which gives us.
00:04:45
An OE which gives us an L.
00:04:51
D which gives us an Li.
00:04:57
Whoops. Where's my eye? German keyboard?
00:04:59
I.
00:04:59
Oh, there it is.
00:05:03
Which gives us an OPMED.
00:05:04
I becomes W 0.
00:05:07
LLO.
00:05:08
So it's decrypted the message, now the second.
00:05:11
Letter group.
00:05:14
It gives us an.
00:05:16
NV gives us AG.
00:05:18
Y gives us an.
00:05:22
OD.
00:05:24
Whoops, gives us an end and the last D.
00:05:28
Gives us AG and there you have it end to end encrypt and decrypt process.
00:05:34
Across a pair of Enigma type machines.
Podcast
Don't Stop Us Now! Podcast
Abigail is the Head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC)
The ACSC which is part of the National Foreign Intelligence agency known as the Australian Signals Directorate. She describes her job as “revealing other peoples’ secrets whilst protecting our own”. The ACSC, is tasked with protecting Australia’s communications and technology networks and people from malicious cyber activity.
Listen to this podcast to hear from Abigail about:
- her career journey took her from being a lawyer in the Navy to a key role in an intelligence agency
- why she realised she had to change her leadership style significantly
- the pros and cons of having to lock your mobile away all day
- tips of how we can all protect ourselves from cyber crime.
State-based graduate programs
Various states in Australia offer graduate programs varying in length from 10 to 18 months. They offer job experiences across diverse roles, training, networking, mentorship and also ongoing employment. Check them out below:
NSW government graduate program
QLD government graduate program
TAS government graduate program
ACT government graduate program
More resources
Read Careers with STEM: Cyber Security 2022 – explore the range of jobs in this crucial field, and highlight real-life role models working in Cyber Security. Discover study pathways into a career in Cyber Security, career stats, insights and practical advice.