Virtus Academy -- Virtus Cybersecurity

Register Interest

Email interested@virtuscyberacademy.org with the course codes you're interested in, your situation (individual learner, school program, corporate cohort), and a sentence about why. We'll get back to you with cohort timing and scheduling as courses come online. An online interest form is coming soon.

Email interested@virtuscyberacademy.org

Try the Tools Today: No Hardware Needed

Cohort enrollment opens later. The browser-resident tools are open today. Open a tab and explore the workbench, read the handouts, load a curated packet capture. When the first cohort runs, the same tools carry forward. When your student is ready to build their own computer in our flagship course, the same browser tool tests their design before they flash it onto the kit. Two paths, one curriculum.

Path A, Build with hardware

~$75 starter kit, grows to ~$169 full kit

The starter kit covers everything for the first courses: a programmable circuit board (the same kind professionals use), two game-style controllers, a small sensor + breadboard kit, and a digital multimeter. Add-on parts (ethernet, sensors, extra chips) bring the full kit to about $169 for students continuing into the deeper electives. Nothing in the starter kit goes to waste, every part carries forward.

See what's in the kit →

Path B, Start in your browser

Free, no hardware, no install

Open a browser tab and begin. The early foundations courses, the first half of our build flagship, and the early networking, security, and hardware lectures all run entirely in-browser, including writing programs, watching them run, and testing your designs. The hardware kit only becomes necessary when your student reaches the part of the course that builds the actual computer. By then you'll know whether to invest.

Open the workbench →

For the technically inclined, what the workbench actually is

The workbench is a growing collection of in-browser tools, currently four: (1) CSA-101 Tools, the full .virtus → .vm → .S → .vof → .hex Pyodide-resident toolchain plus a Rust→Wasm RV32I-Lite emulator plus a yowasp Tang FPGA synthesizer (LIVE on both Tang Primer 25K and Tang Nano 20K); (2) FSM Workbench, an interactive state-machine visualizer with JTAG, DNS, and HTTP substrates; (3) 8bitworkshop, an academy mirror of the in-browser retro IDE for 6502, Z80, and NES targets; and (4) pcap Tools, a Wireshark-style packet analyzer with display-filter learning (covered in the next section). The CSA-101 toolchain output is bit-identical to the local Sipeed toolchain when you're ready to flash. The workbench is also the academy's browser-first tool-integration approach. Recommended tools (Wireshark, network simulators, web-pentest substrates, GNU Radio, MAME) graduate into the workbench as academy-built or academy-mirrored Wasm modules rather than as multi-gigabyte installers. See the master tool integration registry for which tools are LIVE / ALIGNED / IN ENGINEERING / EXTERNAL-INSTALL.

The Pipeline

Virtus Academy is organized as a tier-anchored pipeline feeding into a professional flagship course, offered in five formats. Live cohort, night-class, bootcamp, async-self-paced, and HS+homeschool variants. Courses are designed to stand alone (you can register interest in any course independently) but the pipeline is the shape of the curriculum. Seven tracks span the catalog: CSA (computer-systems build), RE (reverse engineering), PT (penetration testing), NET (networking), RF (radio frequency / SDR), CON (console + retro hardware), and HW (electronics / microcontrollers); AI and SEC run as cross-track support lanes that feed every flagship.

Each track is anchored on a build-it-yourself + down-to-earth-narrative book pair (e.g., RE on Yurichev's Reverse Engineering for Beginners + Erickson's Hacking: The Art of Exploitation paired with bunnie's Hardware Hacker; CSA on Nisan & Schocken's The Elements of Computing Systems + Petzold's CODE; NET on Stevens's TCP/IP Illustrated + Kurose & Ross's Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach; CON on Hugg's Designing Video Game Hardware in Verilog + 8bitworkshop.com paired with Copetti's "Architecture of Consoles."). The per-track foundational-publications campaign closed 7/7 on 2026-05-02; per-course anchor-pair detail lives on each course page.

Stage	Anchor	Pair
0, Spark / On-Ramp	VCA-SPK-101 Spark Curiosity (no prereq)
1, Foundations	VCA-FND-101 Digital Foundations	VCA-FND-102 Python and Automation
2, Hardware & Networks	VCA-HW-101 Electronics and Microcontrollers	VCA-NET-101 Networks and Packet Analysis
3, Security & RE Intro	VCA-SEC-101 Cybersecurity Principles	VCA-RE-011 Introduction to Reverse Engineering
4, Flagship Trio	VCA-RE-101 Reverse Engineering of Embedded Systems (RE flagship) · VCA-CSA-101 Fundamentals of Computing Systems (build flagship)	VCA-ADV-101 Adversarial Techniques: CVE-to-Tool

Electives and bridges, VCA-CSA-101 (Fundamentals of Computing Systems), VCA-PEN-101 (Introduction to Penetration Testing), VCA-WIR-101 (Wireless Penetration Testing), and VCA-RE-201 (Reverse Engineering of Burst Radio Signals). Are taken later in the pathway as schedule and learner interest permit.

Adult / professional track: the same courses are offered on a compressed schedule for individual practitioners and corporate cohorts. Same material, adjusted pacing; the capstone expectations match the professional level rather than the entry-level scaffolded approach.

Flagships

Two flagship courses anchor the program: one teaches you to take systems apart (RE-101), the other teaches you to build a system from scratch (CSA-101). Together they bracket the whole curriculum.

Embedded Systems Reverse Engineering Stream

VCA-RE-101: Reverse Engineering of Embedded Systems

Pilot Cohort

~178 hr · 4.0 units-equivalent Professional level Prereq: full pipeline or equivalent

Belt 4/5

The complete methodology for recovering design information, firmware, and cryptographic material from commercial embedded systems, without access to vendor source, schematics, or documentation. Capstoned on end-to-end reverse engineering of a Motorola SURFboard SB6141 cable modem.

View course details →

Computer Systems Build Stream

VCA-CSA-101: Fundamentals of Computing Systems

Build Flagship

~155 hr · 12 modules Intermediate level Prereq: FND-101 + FND-102

Belt 4/5

Build a working computer from the simplest logic gates up. Twelve modules walk students from circuits to math units to CPU to assembler to operating system - ending with a real application the student wrote running on hardware the student designed. Anchored on Charles Petzold's CODE so the path is followable from the start. Modules 1-4 run free in the browser; the kit comes in when the actual silicon build begins. The deepest engineering deliverable in the catalog.

View course details →

Course Catalog

Twenty-four courses across ten tracks, plus topical modules. Eleven are classroom-ready right now (look for the green Ready / Enroll pill); the rest are catalog-only while their curriculum is in build. View by tier (prereq depth), track (domain), or flat (alphabetical), or search the full catalog content. Tier view groups by depth in the prereq map; Tier 1 has no Virtus prereq, each tier above depends on the one below.

Loading catalog...

Excursions

Beyond the structured pipeline, students undertake excursions - short build-it-yourself tool projects that compound across courses. Each excursion teaches a tool by building it. Logic analyzer, JTAG fuzzer, multi-protocol bus host, ethernet stack, retro game-controller decoder, all of them live on the Tang Primer 25K FPGA you already have in your kit.

Last updated 2026-05-08. Most excursions are Researched (parts list + effort estimate written up) or In-Build (active build under way). None are Shipped-in-Course yet - we don't add an excursion to a course until we've built and proofed it ourselves. See the Hardware Platform page for the full list and how we decide when something is ready to ship.

fpga_pio substrate In-Build

RP2040-style PIO state-machine subsystem ported to the Tang Primer 25K. One core powers the Bus Pirate, Arduino HAL, JTAGulator, and Logic Analyzer below. Build it once, four other excursions get easier. Active build under way.

~60-80 hr · substrate

JTAGulator (clean-room) Researched

Pin-discovery for unknown JTAG / SWD / UART headers on RE-101's SB6141-class targets. Clean-room re-implementation drives a level-shifter PMOD. No third-party HDL forked. Highest-ROI excursion; recommended first ship.

~30-50 hr · +$8 PMOD

Logic analyzer Researched

Five-layer build: probe pod, sample engine, trigger module, buffer, sigrok PulseView decode. Saleae Logic 4-class capability at roughly 1/15 the cost. License: MIT. ~3-4K LUT4 of FPGA.

~60-100 hr · +$5-10

Bus Pirate Researched

Multi-protocol bus host (SPI / I²C / 1-Wire / UART) running on the fpga_pio substrate above. Bus Pirate 5 firmware ports near-unchanged; PMOD probe pod fabricated by the student. Gated on the fpga_pio substrate excursion.

~80-120 hr · +$3

ENC28J60 + own TCP/IP stack Researched

Hand-coded minimal TCP/IP stack (Ethernet → ARP → ICMP → UDP → minimal TCP) running on Virtus OS with a $6 ENC28J60 SPI module. ICMP echo + UDP echo + minimal TCP listener verified against tcpdump / Wireshark. The networking stack is a black box nowhere; you write the whole thing.

~120-160 hr · +$6 SPI

DS2 controller adapter Researched

SNES / DS2-style retro game-controller decoder on the Tang Primer 25K, the reverse engineering exercise that lets students plug a real controller into their hand-built console (CON-101) or their CSA-101 capstone. Bridges the build flagship into the Virtus Console course.

~30-60 hr · +$5 connector

Excursions don't add a belt-dot. They earn a separate skill endorsement on your transcript alongside the belt. You can complete the full belt-ladder without ever touching an excursion; or you can stack endorsements as you go. Pricing and credentialing firm up as the first excursions roll into cohort form.

Academy artifacts you can use today

Three things shipped, not promised. Open them in your browser without enrolling. The curriculum that produces this kind of artifact lives behind the same engineering rigor.

Library

38 handouts as HTML, PDF, or Markdown

Quick-reference handouts spanning the curriculum: RV32I-Lite encoding cards, per-CVE detection-rule references, NET-101 protocol walkthroughs, anchor reading guides, and more. Read each in the browser, or download as PDF or Markdown.

Browse all 38 →

Browser tool

Wireshark-style packet analyzer

Browser-resident packet analyzer with a display-filter learning surface and a packet dissector. Load a curated capture (Wireshark CVE quartet, NET-101 fundamentals walkthroughs, or other curated samples) and explore. The whole tool runs Wasm-side; nothing leaves your device.

Open the pcap tool →

Mini-module

Four real CVEs disclosed May 2026

A worked example of how the academy approaches current security research: four real Wireshark CVEs, each paired with academy-original PCAP captures, per-CVE Snort and Suricata detection rules, and a binary-diff lab cluster. The kind of content every Virtus course produces.

View the mini-module →

The Virtus Academy Approach

01

Practitioner-Built

Every course is designed by operators who use the material in paid engagements. If a technique isn't useful in real work, it doesn't make the syllabus.

02

Lab-Intensive

Laboratory time dominates the schedule. Students build hardware benches, run industry-standard tooling, and produce artifacts that look like professional deliverables.

03

Real Targets

Every capstone is an end-to-end engagement against a real commercial device or protocol. No toy labs, no fictional scenarios. Graduates produce publication-quality reports.

Certifications: Prepare, Exceed, Earn as a Side Effect

Virtus Academy is not a CompTIA prep shop. It is a trade-school program whose courses prepare students to do the work, not to pass the test. Industry certifications (CompTIA, Cisco, ISC2, Python Institute, OffSec) are mapped onto the pipeline because they're portable, employer-readable, and validate a body of knowledge for students who want that validation. But the Virtus course always exceeds the cert it aligns with, and certs are never required to complete a Virtus course.

When a Virtus course has no natural industry-cert match. True for HW-101, CSA-101, RE-101, and RE-011 at this level, the Virtus completion certificate is the credential, and the capstone artifact itself (a working data logger, a built computer, a reverse-engineering report) is the portfolio piece.

Academic Independence

Virtus Academy is the education arm of Virtus Cybersecurity, LLC. A Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB). The program is independent; no affiliation with, or endorsement by, any government academy or university is claimed or implied. Credentials issued by Virtus Academy are private certifications attesting to successful completion of the stated course requirements.

Tell Us What You Want to See First

Cohort scheduling priority follows demand. If you want a specific course offered - or you're a school or organization that wants to run a pipeline. Send a note.