Week 5: Virtualization and Safe Labs

Garden State Cyber I introduces virtual machines so cybersecurity practice can happen inside a controlled environment.

This week is about understanding that boundary before relying on it.

This week

Lesson 1: Virtual Machines: Build a Boundary Before the Lab

Model host, guest, virtualization layer, shared resources, network connectivity, snapshots, and evidence paths. Learn why a VM is an isolation control, not a magic safety shield.

Lesson 2: Design a Safe Lab Lifecycle

Use the lifecycle prepare → verify → execute → observe → preserve → reset. Build preflight checks, a lab manifest, stop conditions, and reproducible procedures.

Lesson 3: VM Lab: Observe, Break the Assumption, Recover

Make one authorized configuration change in a supplied lab, observe the security trade-off, and prove that you can restore the known-good baseline.

What you will produce

• virtualization boundary diagram
• lab manifest
• preflight record
• failure-scenario analysis
• complete VM lab record
• recovery verification

The standard is simple:

A safe lab has an explicit target, explicit boundary, explicit evidence path, and explicit ending.