Intelligence and Information Operations
Bachelor of Applied Science
Quick Facts
#1
Intelligence Community
Center of Academic Excellence
- U.S. News & World Report, 2021
Develop the core skills necessary to meet the United States’ National Security imperatives through increased educational, cultural and experiential opportunities within the Intelligence Community.
Enhance your critical, analytical and cultural skills with a challenging and practical curriculum led by world class faculty and practiced intelligence experts. Dive into unique scholarship, language and overseas cultural immersion opportunities and exclusive internship and career placement assistance. You may also choose to participate in intimate networking sessions with leaders and practitioners of the United States IC and professional development summits.
The Intelligence and Information Operations curriculum includes both offensive and defensive Intelligence & Information Operations content delivered within our state-of-the-art Virtual Learning Environment. As a result, you will have extensive hands-on experience to develop the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to succeed after you graduate.
The Defense Intelligence Agency’s Intelligence Community - Center of Academic Excellence (IC-CAE) designation demonstrates that Arizona's Intelligence program meets the most demanding requirements and prepares our graduates for successful careers within the US Intelligence Community.
Choose from three IC-CAE designated degree tracks: Operational Intelligence, Information Warfare and Law Enforcement Intelligence.
*Residents of some U.S. Territories may not be eligible. Please see our Eligibility & State Authorization page for more information.
Outcomes
Skills
Earning your Bachelor of Applied Science in Intelligence and Information Operations will build core skills, including:
- Analytical thinking
- Cyber threat intelligence
- Decision support
- Intelligence & information collection
- Intelligence analysis
- Interagency collaboration
- National security support
- Strategic foresight & planning
- Targeting
Potential Career Paths
Graduates of the BAS in Intelligence and Information Operations program will be prepared to pursue the following careers:
Emphases
The Operational Intelligence track is a defense-focused intelligence collection, synchronization and analysis program that prepares graduates for immediate employment within the Intelligence Community.
A high-level view of intelligence in the formulation and execution of US national security policy. Take a detailed look at challenges facing both the analysis of intelligence information and the introduction of that analysis into the national security policy process.
Familiarize yourself with the basic purposes and nature of US covert action and to help them understand its historical development. More fundamentally, the course will seek to illustrate both covert actions' potential utility and its inherent limitations and challenges.
The Information Warfare track is focused on both offensive and defensive Information Operations. This track provides graduates with the skills necessary to detect, protect and craft advanced information operation campaigns.
Explore the concepts of deception, counter-deception, counterintelligence, and psychological operations. Review a survey of how these concepts are used in adversarial Information Operations and why they are among the most effective mechanisms to sway public opinion.
Prepare to perform analyses of major cyber events to determine contextual relevance and possible threat actor intentions. Using case studies, you will conduct an analytic examination of the similarities and differences among discrete cyber events to determine whether an event presents as possible criminal activity, terrorist activity, or rises to the level of an act of war.
The Law Enforcement Intelligence track is focused on Intelligence-driven policing, forensic analysis and information sharing. The Law Enforcement Intelligence track conforms to major Federal, State and Local law enforcement agency academic requirements.
Build an understanding of intrusion detection methodologies, tools, and approaches to incident response. Examine computer forensic principles, including operating system concepts, registry structures, file system concepts, boot process, low-level hardware calls, and file operations.
Examine how the Python scripting language can be used to support advanced analysis in offensive and defensive security operations. Use hands-on scripting exercises to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of automated tools to solve complex security-related problems.
