Missiora Academy · Sector
IT, Technology & Cyber Security
The flagship Missiora Academy sector.
Free, structured learning across IT support, networking, systems, cloud, programming, databases, AI & automation and cyber security — with certification pathways, role-by-role career guides, interactive explainers and hands-on labs.
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The IT, Technology & Cyber Security career journey
A structured path from the fundamentals to leadership-level mastery. Each stage builds real, evidenced competence and moves you closer to a verified certification.
Your career journey
Foundation
Free0/8 complete8 activities · 1130 XP
New to the field — build the core fundamentals every professional needs.
Get started with confidence and understand what the role really involves.
Python Fundamentals
Write and run real Python in your browser (Pyodide/WASM). Master variables, loops, dictionaries and functions, then build a mini security log analyser — with a live variable inspector and a debugging challenge.
Skills you'll gain
Command Line (Bash) Fundamentals
Navigate the Linux command line in a guided, high-fidelity terminal. Learn the essential commands every IT and cyber professional needs — with AI validation of every step.
Skills you'll gain
Beginner Networking
Learn the essential networking commands every IT and cyber professional uses — test connectivity, inspect your IP configuration, resolve DNS and trace a route — in a guided terminal.
Skills you'll gain
Linux Fundamentals
Master everyday Linux administration in a guided terminal — identity, permissions, processes, services and package management — the foundation for cloud, DevOps and cyber roles.
Skills you'll gain
Git & GitHub Fundamentals
Learn the version-control workflow every developer, cloud and DevOps professional needs — initialise a repo, commit, branch and push to GitHub — in a guided terminal.
Skills you'll gain
Cyber Fundamentals Competency Check
A quick, measurable competency check on core security fundamentals — CIA triad, threat types, and basic controls. Establishes your baseline and adds Career Passport™ evidence.
Skills you'll gain
Read the Logs: Spot the Intrusion
Your first taste of a SOC. Read authentication logs, spot the suspicious pattern, and decide what it means — the core daily skill of a SOC Analyst, graded by an AI coach.
Skills you'll gain
Access Control Done Right: Least Privilege & MFA
The IAM foundations that stop most breaches: least privilege and MFA. Make the right access decisions for a small team, graded by an AI coach.
Skills you'll gain
Practitioner
Pro0/13 complete13 activities · 2 simulations · 2970 XP
Practising the day-to-day decisions and skills the job demands.
Perform the real tasks of the role and start evidencing genuine competence.
Day One: Secure the Fleet (Branching Simulation)
Set up new starters and harden endpoints the right way — least privilege, MFA and a clean asset inventory — the boring hygiene that stops the 3am incidents.
Skills you'll gain
The Suspicious Email (Branching Simulation)
Triage a reported phishing email calmly and correctly — verify, contain the affected account, and turn one report into protection for everyone.
Skills you'll gain
PowerShell Fundamentals
Learn Windows PowerShell cmdlets, the pipeline and filtering in a guided console with AI validation — the automation language of Windows and Azure administration.
Skills you'll gain
Windows Fundamentals
Get hands-on with core Windows administration in a guided PowerShell console — inspect the system, network config, services and local users — the daily toolkit of a help-desk or desktop-support role.
Skills you'll gain
Docker Fundamentals
Learn containers hands-on in a guided terminal — pull an image, run a container, list what's running, build your own image and clean up — the foundation for modern cloud and DevOps work.
Skills you'll gain
Starter CTF: First Blood
Your first Capture The Flag. Decode hidden data, recognise encodings and submit the flags — a fun, gentle introduction to the puzzle-solving mindset of cyber security.
Skills you'll gain
Linux Incident Triage
A production Linux web server is running hot. Work in a fully interactive terminal — explore the real filesystem, hunt the rogue process, read the auth logs and uncover the compromise. A true hands-on triage.
Skills you'll gain
Windows Endpoint Triage
A finance workstation shows a mysterious new admin account and overnight failed logins. Investigate live in an interactive PowerShell console — inspect services, local users and the Windows Event Log to reconstruct the attack.
Skills you'll gain
SOC Alert Investigation
Work a live SIEM alert end-to-end as a SOC analyst: triage the detection, pivot through logs and EDR telemetry, map the activity to MITRE ATT&CK, write detection queries and decide on containment — graded by an AI mentor.
Skills you'll gain
The Behavioural Interview
Step into a real behavioural interview for a role you want. Make the calls a strong candidate makes, answer a competency question using STAR (graded by an AI interviewer), and navigate a tough follow-up. Your decisions branch to different outcomes — a strong offer, an offer with reservations, or a rejection.
Skills you'll gain
Triage a SIEM Alert Storm
A realistic SOC shift: a flood of SIEM alerts, limited time. Prioritise by real risk, cut the false positives, and escalate the true threat — the core Practitioner SOC skill.
Skills you'll gain
Dissect a Phishing Email
A reported email lands in your queue. Analyse the headers, URLs and indicators, decide if it's malicious, and turn one report into protection for the whole organisation.
Skills you'll gain
Scope a Penetration Test
Before any hacking comes scoping. Agree rules of engagement, authorisation and boundaries for a real client test — the professional and legal foundation of ethical hacking.
Skills you'll gain
Professional
Pro0/7 complete7 activities · 2 simulations · 1 case study · 2260 XP
Ready for complex, multi-stakeholder scenarios under real pressure.
Handle ambiguity and stakeholders like a seasoned professional.
Patch Tuesday Under Pressure (Branching Simulation)
Prioritise a backlog of vulnerabilities by real-world risk — exploitability, exposure and asset value — and roll out patches without taking production down.
Skills you'll gain
Web App Penetration Test
Run an authorised web-app pentest: interpret recon, identify the vulnerability class, craft a proof-of-concept, and write the impact and remediation — the way a professional tester reports it. AI-graded.
Skills you'll gain
The 3am Incident: Contain the Breach (Branching Simulation)
A realistic, branching security-incident response. A phishing-led ransomware outbreak is spreading — you're the SOC analyst on call. Triage, contain and communicate under pressure, with AI coaching and a personalised debrief (Pro).
Skills you'll gain
Threat-Model a Web App (STRIDE)
Think like an attacker at design time. Apply the STRIDE model to a new web app and recommend controls — the Security Engineer's craft of building security in, not bolting it on.
Skills you'll gain
Harden a Cloud Account
A new cloud account is wide open. Apply cloud security fundamentals — identity, exposure, logging and config — to lock it down without breaking the workloads.
Skills you'll gain
Incident Response Competency Assessment
A measurable assessment of your incident-response competence — the IR lifecycle, containment decisions and evidence handling. Contributes strong Career Passport™ evidence for DFIR roles.
Skills you'll gain
Case Study: The Insider Data Exfiltration
A real-world-style case study: a departing employee is quietly exfiltrating data. Analyse the evidence, weigh the signals, and decide how to act — balancing security, HR and legal.
Skills you'll gain
Advanced
Premium0/9 complete9 activities · 2 simulations · 1 case study · 4060 XP
Leadership-level, high-stakes decisions where early choices change later outcomes.
Prove you can lead and deliver at the top of your profession.
After the Breach: The Board Review (Branching Simulation)
Lead the post-incident board review — own the lessons, resist the urge to spin, and turn a breach into lasting improvement. Your earlier honesty shapes how this lands.
Skills you'll gain
Active Directory Attack & Defence
Step into a red-vs-blue Active Directory scenario: identify Kerberoastable service accounts, understand how the attack works, write the enumeration PowerShell, and design the defences that shut it down — AI-graded throughout.
Skills you'll gain
Cloud Security Breach Response
A leaked AWS access key is being abused from a foreign IP. Investigate CloudTrail and S3, contain the compromised credential with the AWS CLI, and design the controls that stop it happening again — AI-graded throughout.
Skills you'll gain
Ransomware Incident Response
Ransomware is detonating across the estate. Lead the response: contain the spread, make the hard recovery decisions, run the isolation commands, and write the post-incident review — under pressure, AI-graded.
Skills you'll gain
Threat Hunt: C2 Beaconing
Run a hypothesis-driven threat hunt for command-and-control beaconing hiding in normal traffic. Read the proxy telemetry, write the detection query, map it to MITRE, and decide what happens next — AI-graded.
Skills you'll gain
Operation Blackfrost: Ransomware Incident Response (Capstone)
The flagship Premium capstone. Lead a live ransomware incident at Meridian Ltd from first alert to recovery — containment, forensics, ransom decision, regulatory comms and clean recovery — then write the formal Incident Report and the Executive Briefing that a real response demands. Your decisions AND your written deliverables are assessed by AI against professional rubrics, producing employer-ready Career Passport™ evidence.
Skills you'll gain
Case Study: The Ransomware That Started With One Click
A deep, multi-part Premium case study of a full ransomware incident — from patient zero to boardroom. Analyse each phase, make the hard calls, and extract the lessons a real DFIR lead would.
Skills you'll gain
Employer Assessment: SOC Analyst (Tier 1)
A Premium, employer-style practical assessment replicating a real SOC Analyst hiring exercise. Multi-stage, timed-realistic, and scored like an employer would — powerful Career Passport™ and Employer Match evidence.
Skills you'll gain
Employer Assessment: GRC Risk Assessment Exercise
A Premium employer-style GRC exercise: assess risks, map controls to a framework, and advise the business on treatment — exactly the deliverable a GRC Analyst produces. Rich Career Passport™ evidence.
Skills you'll gain
The Sentinel Cyber Journey — IT & Cyber Simulation Journey
Live one continuous story at Meridian Ltd — from securing devices on day one, to triaging a phishing report, to fighting the 3am ransomware incident, prioritising the vulnerability clean-up, and finally owning the breach at a board review. Every simulation continues the same story, and the hygiene and honesty you show early decide how the finale lands.
0 of 6 stages completed
Onboarding & Asset Hygiene
Your first week as a junior analyst at Meridian Ltd. Get the fundamentals right and you set up every later incident to go your way.
Unlock with Pro ›Phishing Triage
A staff member forwards a dodgy email. How you triage it decides whether this is a non-event or the start of the breach you'll fight in stage 3.
Unlock with Pro ›The 3am Incident
A realistic, branching security-incident response. A phishing-led ransomware outbreak is spreading — you're the SOC analyst on call. Triage, contain and communicate under pressure, with AI coaching and a personalised debrief (Pro).
Unlock with Pro ›Vulnerability & Patch Prioritisation
The breach is contained. Now the harder, quieter work: prioritising a flood of vulnerabilities with limited time, without breaking the business.
Unlock with Pro ›Post-Incident & Board Review
The finale. How honestly you handled every earlier stage now decides whether the board review builds trust — or turns into a blame hunt. Early integrity pays off here.
Start ›Capstone
The whole Sentinel journey has led here. It's 04:12 and Meridian Ltd is being ransomed live. Lead the response end-to-end, then produce the two documents a real incident demands.
StartYour employability toolkit
Learning libraries
Structured, framework-based guides. Mark topics complete to build your Job Readiness Score.
Technology Fundamentals
Vendor-neutral foundations — networking, systems, cloud, databases, programming and AI.
IT Career Skills: Documentation, Troubleshooting, ITIL & Communication
Free IT Career Skills path: documentation, troubleshooting, ticketing & service desk, ITIL & change management, communication, customer service, escalation, root cause analysis and
Read guideCyber Security Fundamentals: Principles, Threats, Defence & Operations
Free Cyber Security Fundamentals learning path: security principles, risk, threat actors, malware, network security, IAM, cryptography, vulnerability management, SOC and incident r
Read guideAI & Automation Fundamentals: LLMs, Prompting, RAG, Agents & Automation
Free AI & Automation Fundamentals path: AI basics, LLMs, prompt engineering, ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini/Copilot, RAG, vector databases, AI agents, automation, Python, AI security and go
Read guideCloud Fundamentals: Concepts, Azure & AWS
Free Cloud Fundamentals learning path: cloud computing, IaaS/PaaS/SaaS, deployment models, high availability, containers, Kubernetes, cloud networking, IAM, security and operations
Read guideDatabases & SQL Fundamentals: Design, Query & Manage Data
Free Databases & SQL Fundamentals path: relational databases, normalization, keys, CRUD, JOINs, indexes, views, transactions & ACID, security, backups and an intro to NoSQL.
Read guideLinux Fundamentals: The Command Line, Permissions & Administration
Free Linux Fundamentals learning path: the filesystem, shell, permissions, processes and services, package management, networking and Bash scripting.
Read guideWindows Fundamentals: Active Directory, Identity & Administration
Free Windows Fundamentals learning path: Active Directory, Kerberos/NTLM authentication, LDAP, Group Policy, PKI, DNS/DHCP, Microsoft Entra ID, PowerShell and administration.
Read guideProgramming Fundamentals: Python, PowerShell, Bash & Automation
Free Programming Fundamentals path: core concepts plus Python, PowerShell and Bash, version control with Git, APIs & JSON and automation — the foundation for cloud, DevOps and secu
Read guideMicrosoft 365 Fundamentals: Apps, Identity, Security & Admin
Free Microsoft 365 Fundamentals path: core apps (Exchange, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive), identity via Entra ID, security & compliance, and administration — mapped to MS-900.
Read guideNetworking Fundamentals: The Complete Free Vendor-Neutral Guide
Learn networking from scratch: OSI, TCP/IP, IP addressing, switching, VLANs, routing, DNS, DHCP, NAT and Wi-Fi — a free vendor-neutral path into Network+ and CCNA.
Read guideCertification Pathways
Structured CompTIA and vendor certification learning paths with interview prep.
CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701): Complete Free Study Guide & Career Path
Your complete, free CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) study companion — every exam domain, interview preparation, salary expectations and career pathway.
Read guideCompTIA A+ (220-1101 & 220-1102): Complete Free Study Guide & Career Path
Free CompTIA A+ study guide: Core 1 & Core 2 exam domains, IT support career path, UK salaries and interview prep — the beginner's route into IT.
Read guideCompTIA Network+ (N10-009): The Complete Guide
Your complete guide to CompTIA Network+ (N10-009): the five exam domains, how it builds on A+ and Networking Fundamentals, careers and salaries — with interview prep.
Read guideCareer Roles & Readiness
Role-by-role guides mapping the exact skills each IT & cyber career needs.
Cyber Security Careers
Break into and progress in cyber security with role-specific guidance.
SOC Analyst Interview Questions
Triage, SIEM, MITRE ATT&CK, incident response and the behavioural questions a SOC hiring manager actually asks — and how to answer them.
Read guideCompTIA Security+ Interview Guide
Turn your Security+ into interview success — the core domains, the questions employers ask around them, and how to prove applied understanding.
Read guidePenetration Tester Interview Questions
Methodology, web and network exploitation, Active Directory, reporting and ethics — the questions pen-test employers ask and how to answer them.
Read guideCyber Security Career Path
A practical map of UK cyber security careers — entry points, the major role families, the skills and certifications that matter, and how to progress.
Read guideGRC Interview Questions
Frameworks, risk management, audit, UK GDPR and ISO 27001 — the GRC questions employers ask and how to answer them.
Read guideNetwork Security Interview Questions
TCP/IP, firewalls, VPNs, segmentation, common attacks and Zero Trust — the network security questions employers ask and how to answer them.
Read guideRole-specific certifications
Competency-based, evidence-verified certifications at every level — proven through learning, practice, assessment and interview, then verifiable by employers. Not course completion.
IT Support Technician
FoundationA Foundation-level, competency-based certification for aspiring IT Support Technicians in IT, Technology & Cyber Security — proving core concepts, introductory learning and beginner practice. Evidence-verified, not just course completion.
SOC Analyst
FoundationA Foundation-level, competency-based certification for aspiring SOC Analysts in IT, Technology & Cyber Security — proving core concepts, introductory learning and beginner practice. Evidence-verified, not just course completion.
Network Engineer
PractitionerA Practitioner-level, competency-based certification for aspiring Network Engineers in IT, Technology & Cyber Security — proving the ability to perform typical workplace tasks, evidenced through practical simulations and skills assessment. Evidence-verified, not just course completion.
Cyber Security Analyst
PractitionerA Practitioner-level, competency-based certification for aspiring Cyber Security Analysts in IT, Technology & Cyber Security — proving the ability to perform typical workplace tasks, evidenced through practical simulations and skills assessment. Evidence-verified, not just course completion.
GRC Analyst
Professional ProA Professional-level, competency-based certification for aspiring GRC Analysts in IT, Technology & Cyber Security — proving competence in realistic workplace scenarios, with rich employability evidence suitable for job applications. Evidence-verified, not just course completion.
Incident Response
Professional ProA Professional-level, competency-based certification for aspiring Incident Responses in IT, Technology & Cyber Security — proving competence in realistic workplace scenarios, with rich employability evidence suitable for job applications. Evidence-verified, not just course completion.
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Personalised for your goals and the skills you're building here — because careers connect and adjacent professions compound your employability.
Turn this learning into a real interview
You've explored the skills employers want in IT, Technology & Cyber Security. Now practise a realistic, AI-scored interview for these roles and get a full Hiring Committee™ report.
Ready to prove you're job-ready?
Learn the fundamentals, practise with AI-powered interviews, and build a Career Passport™ that shows employers exactly what you can do.