A young learner creating with a laptop
Ages 13–15 · Tech Builders

Cyber Defense Basics

Secure a simulated home network.

Your progress0 of 5 sections complete · 0%
Learning goals & safe-use plan

Ages 13–15

  • Digital safety: Recognize phishing and social engineering, secure accounts, understand privacy settings, and perform cyber labs only with authorization.
  • AI literacy: Evaluate bias, hallucinations, deepfakes, privacy risks, attribution, and responsible model use.
  • Challenge: Complete an independent debugging, defense, data, or design scenario with documented reasoning.
  • Portfolio: Publish a sanitized project artifact with README-style purpose, steps, screenshots or evidence, and lessons learned.
  • Mastery check: Explain the design, demonstrate testing, identify a security or ethics risk, and defend one improvement.
BEAT IT LEARNING · Cyber Defense Basics
START HERE · INTRODUCTION & RESOURCES

Welcome to Cyber Defense Basics!

Learn safe defense ideas using a paper or simulated home network.

  • Learn: Open a section and read its short topics.
  • Try: Follow the lab steps and check what you made.
  • Review: Answer all four questions correctly to earn section progress.
  • Keep exploring: You can skip a quiz without earning progress. Finish every section to unlock the final challenge.
Read or watch

Reading topics are ready. Video lessons will appear when recorded.

Build something

Secure a simulated home network.

Cyber Defense Basics course guideAll reading topics, labs, and review questions in one PDF
Download PDF
Project worksheet

Plan, build, test, and share your work as you complete the course labs.

  • My plan: ________________________________________________
  • Checkpoint 1: A simple threat map.
  • Checkpoint 2: A labeled network map.
  • Checkpoint 3: A defense plan with reasons.
The printable worksheet is included in the PDF guide.

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