Cyber Security

Entry requirements

Applicants should either have at least a second class honours degree in the cognate subjects of Computing, at least a second class honours degree in a non-cognate subject supported by evidence of an aptitude for the subject applied for, or have equivalent experience or training, normally from within the work environment.

Months of entry

September

Course content

Use your background degree or equivalent background in IT to develop your ability to implement cyber security mechanisms into any business or organisation.

As part of this course, you’ll:

• Develop in-demand practical skills in cyber security
• Study key topics you’ll need working in industry such as authentication, access control, malware, vulnerabilities, secure coding, sandboxing, virtualisation, vulnerability assessment, Unix security, and ethical hacking and penetration testing techniques
• Learn through short, recorded lectures, lab and support documents with clear guidance, illustrative screen shots, and audio recordings

Teaching and learning
You’ll learn via oVirt, an online virtualised computer suite. This utilises a novel system, “Hacktivity”, developed in house, which automatically generates unique virtual machines for each student providing individualised security/hacking challenges and environments.

You’ll work through security labs with automated chatbots (our Hackerbot system) that present hacking and defensive challenges. Hackerbots will carry out real security attacks on the network against your VMs for defensive and investigation tasks. Completing tasks will reward you with “flags” for capture the flag (CTF) based assessments and hacking competitions.

Cyber security and digital forensics
If you already have an understanding of cyber security from an undergraduate degree, we offer MSc Cyber Security & Digital Forensics which will enable you to specialise in the field.