Cyber Operations

Graduate Certificate

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Quick Facts

Credits Required: 18

Cost Per Credit: $750.00

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College of Applied Science & Technology

Program Details

Are you ready to confront the ever-evolving challenges of cybersecurity? The Graduate Certificate in Cyber Operations is designed for tech-savvy individuals with computing or cybersecurity backgrounds and career changers seeking a powerful entry point into this high-demand field.

The coursework is a blend of introductory principles in security scripting and cybersecurity principles, followed by more advanced courses in offensive and defensive cyber operations. You’ll learn to advance the concepts and principles of cybersecurity across different disciplines, threats, and technologies. You’ll learn concepts and principles of developing practical applications supporting cybersecurity and digital investigation activities through Python programming. The coursework will also prepare you to operate in the current cyber and technology landscape and the tools to analyze and respond to issues in this complex and evolving industry. The curriculum is delivered within our state-of-the-art Cyber Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) to ensure students have extensive hands-on experiences.

This program is your springboard to becoming a cybersecurity practitioner, academic, or researcher. We'll equip you with a solid foundation in security scripting and core cybersecurity principles. Then, you'll delve into advanced offensive and defensive strategies, gaining the ability to analyze threats and implement solutions across diverse disciplines.

View detailed program information

*Residents of some U.S. Territories may not be eligible. Please see our Eligibility & State Authorization page for more information.

Courses

The curriculum for this program includes:

This program advances the concepts and principles of developing practical applications supporting cybersecurity and digital investigation activities through Python programming. You’ll build on programming fundamentals using Python elements, secure programming standards, and developing applications for cybersecurity. You’ll also develop, debug, execute, and deploy Python scripts.

Learn to advance the concepts and principles of cybersecurity across different disciplines, threats, and technologies. Exposes foundational knowledge and importance of Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability (CIA Triad) concerning threats, vulnerabilities, and controls. Students will examine cybersecurity attackers' techniques, skills, motives, and vulnerabilities within programming, operating systems, networks, data, and web interfaces.

This course provides an advanced look at the ethical, legal, and policy issues that arise in the field of cyber and technology. A variety of ethical, legal, and policy issues from history and current events will be presented. You’ll gain the knowledge to operate in the current cyber and technology landscape and the tools to analyze and respond to issues in this complex and evolving landscape.

This course examines the methods by which today's security protocols and their implementations are deemed secure and reliable. Learn to identify the mechanisms that make communications systems secure and consider how to assess the effectiveness of existing controls. The course takes a forward-looking approach and challenges students to consider problems such as the realization of quantum cryptography and the continued expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT). Examine and research methods for quantifying the level of protection provided by existing protocols, including formalized approaches to this type of assessment.

This course explores the implementation of Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) principles in a legacy network. You’ll address the quantification of effectiveness as ZTA is incrementally implemented in design and architecture, then proceed to address cloud data security, cloud platform and infrastructure security, cloud application security, cloud security operations, cloud risk management, and compliance management. ZTA guidelines set forth by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Center for Internet Security (CIS), industry-accepted best practices, and data-driven applications in cybersecurity will be leveraged through this course.