Cyber Defense
Undergraduate Certificate
Quick Facts
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The Undergraduate Certificate in Cyber Defense provides the opportunity to upskill in a fast-growing and in-demand career field. This program serves students across the University, including those who have not yet developed the technical background necessary to be successful in the field of cybersecurity. In this program, you will gain a sound understanding of the technologies and methods utilized to defend systems and networks.
Due to the growing demand for cybersecurity professionals in every field, this certificate is an excellent complement to any University of Arizona technical or non-technical degree program. Required courses are designed to build core knowledge, skills and abilities in the area of Cyber Defense. You will learn to design network architectures, employ active and passive defensive technologies and arm those defensive technologies with tactical Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI). You will also learn how to conduct Network Security Monitoring (NSM) and Threat Hunting Operations to respond to security incidents and defend against advanced cyber threats.
Upon the completion of this certificate, you will be able to describe, evaluate and operate a defensive network architecture. You will also employ multiple layers of protection using technologies appropriate to meet mission security goals.
This certificate can be completed one course at a time or can be taken in as few as two semesters.
*Residents of some U.S. Territories may not be eligible. Please see our Eligibility & State Authorization page for more information.
The curriculum for this program includes:
This course provides students with an in-depth analysis of Linux and Unix security issues.
Gain foundational knowledge on the Windows Operating System and securing Windows environments including PowerShell scripting, host hardening and active directory scripting, smart tokens and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), protecting admin credentials and thwarting hackers inside the network.
This course provides a methodology for analyzing networks by examining the network at its infrastructure, network and applications layers, exploring how they transfer data, investigating how network protocols work to enable communication and probing and analyzing how the lower-level network layers support the upper ones.
This course is an introduction to the policies, techniques, and operational capabilities and limitations of implementing an Active Cyber Defense program.
Investigate the threat actors and the techniques they employ to attack networks.
Acquire an overview of the fundamentals of Zero Trust Networks (ZTN).
Outcomes
Skills
Earning your Undergraduate Certificate in Cyber Defense will build core skills, including:
- Analysis
- Analyzing network traffic
- Analyzing security logs
- Auditing reports
- Continuous secure configuration enforcement
- Creating and enforcing firewall and IPsec rules
- Detecting threats within networks
- Determining the security posture of a network
- Enumerating network architectures
- Establishing role-based access control
- Implementing OS hardening
- Managing server hardening
- Problem solving
- Restrict and managing admin and user privileges
- Troubleshooting common security problems
- Understanding and explaining anti-exploitation
- Understanding PowerShell
- Writing scripts, functions, and modules
Potential Career Paths
Graduates of the Undergraduate Certificate in Cyber Defense program will be prepared to pursue the following careers:
