Cyber Operations
Bachelor of Science
Quick Facts
Top 1%
of all Higher-Ed
Institutions
- Center for World University Rankings, 2025
#1
In Best Value Among
Arizona's Public Universities
- Payscale, 2024
The Bachelor of Science in Cyber Operations prepares you to take on one of today’s fastest-growing and most high-stakes fields. Through a blend of technical coursework and hands-on virtual labs, you’ll learn to think like both an attacker and a defender –building skills in areas like network analysis, penetration testing, cryptography and low-level programming.
With two emphasis areas – Artificial Intelligence and Security – you can tailor your degree to align with your interests and career goals. You’ll gain real-world experience analyzing malware, securing systems and responding to cyber threats in controlled environments designed to mirror real scenarios.
Designated by the National Security Agency as a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations, this program equips you with in-demand expertise valued by government agencies, defense contractors and leading tech organizations. Graduates are prepared to pursue careers in roles such as cybersecurity analyst, digital forensics specialist, cyber network defender and security engineer – turning a passion for problem-solving into a powerful, future-focused career.
*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 will provide students with a summary of the basic concepts, terminology, and principles of Cybersecurity. This course will examine how the Internet has not only created a digital landscape that has penetrated every aspect of modern life, but how it has also given rise to a new threat, cyber criminals. Students will study breach reports and case studies to identify the best practices to defend an organization and defeat cyber criminals.
This course provides an overview of problem solving with information technology. Topics cover information representation, relational databases, system design, propositional logic, and cutting-edge technologies for CPU, operating systems, and networks.
This course will introduce students to logic and problem-solving within scripting language environments. The course will build on the foundations of programming and scripting logic while solving real-world problems and creating practical applications. The course will provide a solid foundation of scripting data types, structures, and object-orientated programming. The course will incorporate multiple scripting languages to compare languages and their attributes related to specific programming applications.
This course will provide students with the practical applications of Python programming in support of cybersecurity and digital investigation activities. The course will provide students with a solid foundation of the use of python language elements along with a practical understand on how to develop, debug, execute and deploy python scripts.
This course provides students with 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 layers. Students will use hands-on labs and exercises to investigate and explore network fundamentals.
A sustained study of ethical issues that arise in relation to employment in the public and private sectors, including allocation of resources, corporate and social responsibility, relationships, and discrimination. This course is a designated writing emphasis course. A main focus of this course will be on the ethical and legal standards governing information technology. New technology creates ethical challenges for individuals around the globe, and applies to most persons regardless of whether they are employed in the information technology field or a more traditional occupation.
This course is an introduction to modern cryptography with an emphasis on the fundamental ideas such as private key and public key encryption schemes (DES/AES and RSA), digital signatures, one-way functions, pseudo-random generators, zero-knowledge proofs, and security against active attacks. Advanced topics such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL/TLS) protocol and the attacks on it, secret sharing, two-party and multi-party secure computation, and quantum cryptography will also be covered.
This course covers the theory and application of cloud computing, including Cloud Computing network design and connectivity, server management, best-practices, security, and provider service level agreements. Case studies of industry examples are used as applications to reinforce the discussed theories.
Provides students with an introduction to the policies, techniques, and operational capabilities and limitations of implementing an Active Cyber Defense program. A broad survey of development of defensible network architectures; integration of passive defensive technologies; consumption and production of Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) products; implementation of Network Security Monitoring (NSM) and Hunt Teaming (HT) operations; employment of Incident Response (IR) plans; and Threat and Environment Manipulation techniques (TEM) will be presented, and students will use hands-on activities to practice and implement active defense methodologies.
A culminating experience for majors involving a substantive project that includes an engagement experience and demonstrates a synthesis of learning accumulated in the major, including broadly comprehensive knowledge of the discipline and its methodologies. Senior standing required.
Outcomes
Skills
Earning your Bachelor of Science in Cyber Operations will build core skills, including:
- Cybersecurity
- Cyber threat intelligence
- Security risk assessment
- Penetration testing
- Network analysis
- Reverse engineering
- Low-level programming
- Cyber warfare
- Artificial Intelligence
- Machine learning
Potential Career Paths
Graduates of the Cyber Operations program will be prepared to pursue the following careers:
Areas of Emphasis
In the Artificial Intelligence emphasis area, students:
1. Apply core concepts of artificial intelligence and machine learning (including supervised and unsupervised learning, machine learning, neural networks and deep learning) to analyze cybersecurity problems and evaluate potential solutions.
2. Implement AI-driven security solutions: develop and deploy AI-driven tools and algorithms that enhance the detection, prevention and response to cyber threats. CAE-Cyber Artificial Intelligence Designation. (See courses, above.)
The curriculum for this emphasis includes:
Intelligence in cyber security refers to the use of advanced technologies, such as machine learning and deep learning, to enhance the detection, analysis, prevention, and mitigation of cyber threats and respond accordingly. The integration of AI in cybersecurity brings forth a multitude of advantages, enhancing the overall resilience and effectiveness of defense mechanisms against evolving cyber threats. This course will detail these artificial intelligence capabilities and their application in the cyber security domain.
Machine learning is all about finding patterns in data to get computers to solve complex problems. In this course we study machine representations and algorithms that allow machines to improve their performance on a defined task from experience. This course is a broad overview of existing methods for machine learning and an introduction to adaptive systems in general. Emphasis is given to practical aspects of machine learning algorithms, with a specific focus on the cyber domain.
"Deep Learning" systems, typified by deep neural networks, are increasingly taking over all the AI tasks, ranging from language understanding, speech and image recognition, to machine translation, planning, and even game playing and autonomous driving. In this course we will learn about the basics of deep neural networks, and their applications to various AI tasks, with an emphasis on the cyber domain.
This course will provide students with advanced practical applications of Python programming to support offensive and defensive cybersecurity operations. A crosscut of Python concepts, tools, and techniques will be presented. Students will use interactive programming activities to master and create advanced Python tools to support common cybersecurity tasks.
In the Security emphasis area, students:
1. Perform static and dynamic analysis to identify software vulnerabilities to strengthen future software releases.
2. Plan and execute cyber operations in simulated contested environments to discover network-based vulnerabilities to identify necessary protective measures. CAE-Cyber Operations Designation
The curriculum for this emphasis includes:
This course provides students with an introduction to C programming. Students will use hands-on exercises to practice and implement applications developed in the C programming language on x86 processors. Students will learn how to write business applications as well as small utility programs. Students will gain a good grasp of debugging and how to perform error handling and build larger applications.
This course provides students with an introduction to Assembly programming. Students will use hands-on exercises to practice and implement applications developed in the Assembly programming language on x86 processors. Students will have a deeper understanding of data representation, mathematical manipulation, subroutine linkage, machine encoding as well as interrupts/execution handling and program designs in assembly language.
This course provides students with an understanding of intrusion detection methodologies, tools, and approaches to incident response and digital forensics. This includes the examination of computer forensic principles, including operating system concepts, registry structures, file system concepts, boot process, low level hardware calls, and file operations. Additionally, students will explore the recovery and investigation of digital artifacts in various environments focusing on a hands-on approach using multiple tools and techniques.
This course provides students a methodology to perform safely static and dynamic analysis of software of potentially unknown origin, including obfuscated malware, and to understand fully the software's functionality and specifications. Students will use hands-on labs and exercises to examine the fundamental principles of malware analysis and software reverse engineering.
This course provides an introduction to cyber warfare along with its policy, doctrine, and operational constraints. A broad survey of cyber tools, techniques and procedures will be presented, and students will use hands-on labs to practice and implement attack and defense methodologies.
This course explores concepts of modern operating systems; concurrent processes; process synchronization and communication; resource allocation; kernels; deadlock; memory management; file systems. Lectures cover various aspects of operating system design. Students start the semester with a base virtual operating system and are tasked with implementing features such as scheduling, interprocess communication, and device drivers. CYBV 489 meets the National Security Agency (NSA) Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations (CAE-CO) academic requirements for operating systems theory.
