Online Cybersecurity, MS: Master's Degree

Program Overview

The online Cybersecurity, MS is designed to provide students with the knowledge to manage information-related risks by ensuring confidentiality, integrity, authentication, availability and non-repudiation of data.

Students of this program gain skills to:

Analyze a problem, identify and define the security requirements appropriate to its solution and implement the requirements.
Create an effective presentation for a range of audiences that explains the problem, security issues and requirements and presents a solution.
Function effectively on teams to accomplish a common goal in a professional, ethical, legal and responsible manner.

In June 2017, this program was recognized as a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations (CAE-CO) by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Security Agency (NSA). The combination of the CAE-CO designation plus the active student organization presents students with an exceptional opportunity for leadership in cybersecurity education and research.

Career Outlook: According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for computer and information technology occupations is growing at a rate of 11%, much faster than the average for all occupations. Demand for these jobs stems from an emphasis on cloud computing, the collection and storage of big data and information security.

Admissions and Requirements

To be accepted to this program, you must have:

A Bachelor's degree
A GRE score is requested for non-US undergraduate degrees.
3 GPA or above on a 4.0 scale
Taken the TOEFL
(Only required if English is not your native language)
A written personal statement
1 letters of recommendation
Official/Unoffical transcripts from all previous schools
Resume

To apply to this program:

Complete and submit the online application for admissions.
Pay the non-refundable application fee.

Courses You’ll Take

Course Information

Students choose 5 courses from the elective category. Students choose to either take the thesis or the capstone and an additional elective. Classes in the other category may be required depending on the student's educational background.

Core Courses

Course Number	Course Name	Credits
CSCI/CYBR 8366	Foundations of Cybersecurity	3
Contemporary issues in computer security, including sources for computer security threats and appropriate reactions; basic encryption and decryption; secure encryption systems; program security, trusted operating systems; database security, network and distributed systems security, administering security; legal and ethical issues.
CYBR 8410	Distributed Systems and Network Security	3
The course aims at understanding the issues surrounding data security, integrity, confidentiality and availability in distributed systems. Further, we will discuss various network security issues, threats that exist and strategies to mitigate them. This course will cover topics in cryptography, public key infrastructure, authentication, hashing, digital signatures, ARP protection, IP and IPSEC, IP Tables, SSL/TLS, firewalls, etc.
CYBR 8420	Software Assurance	3
Software assurance is a reasoned, auditable argument created to support the belief that the software will operate as expected. This course is an intersection of knowledge areas necessary to perform engineering activities or aspects of activities relevant for promoting software assurance. This course takes on a software development lifecycle perspective for the prevention of flaws.

Elective Courses

Course Number	Course Name	Credits
CIST 4540	Computer Security Management	3
The purpose of this course is to integrate concepts and techniques from security assessment, risk mitigation, disaster planning and auditing to identify, understand, and propose solutions to problems of computer security and security administration.
CYBR 8436	Quantum Computing and Cryptography	3
The course builds an understanding of exciting concepts behind quantum computing and quantum cryptography. In doing so it will introduce the principles of qubits, superposition, entanglement, teleportation, measurement, quantum error correction, quantum algorithms, quantum key exchange, quantum encryption, and secure quantum channels that are built using these principles. It will also discuss advantages of quantum computing and cryptography over classical computing and cryptography and limitations thereof. The students will come out with a working understanding of the field of quantum computing and quantum cryptography. During the course, students will also implement several of the quantum algorithms.
CYBR 8446	Industrial Control System Security	3
The objective of this course is to research vulnerabilities into, and provide guidance for securing, industrial control systems (ICS). ICS is a general term that encompasses several types of control systems, including supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, distributed control systems (DCS), and other control system items such as Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC). The student will learn to identify network and device vulnerabilities and potential countermeasures to these weaknesses.
CYBR 8450	Applied Cryptography	3
In this course we will implement stream and block ciphers in different modes, public key algorithms, hash functions, message authentication codes, random number generators, etc. Along the way we will also explore weaknesses of these algorithms and implement well-known attacks on them. We will also solve crypto challenges and puzzles. This is a hand-on course and will require programming proficiency. The preferred language will be Python; you can, however, use other object oriented languages.
CYBR 8456	Host-Based Vulnerability Discovery	3
The class will cover security issues at an implementation and hardware level. The students will learn assembly language and the use of a reverse assembler and debugger. This will allow the student to analyze various "packing" algorithms for computer viruses, the viruses themselves, operating system "hooking", "fuzzing", and other machine code, host-based exploits. The class will be using both Windows and Linux as operating systems.
CYBR 8466	Network-Based Vulnerability Discovery	3
The course is an advanced class in which the students learn various techniques for testing for and identifying security flaws in network software and web applications. Internet technologies such as HTTP, DNS, DHCP, and others are examined in the context of cyber security. Students are expected to participate in numerous hands-on experiments related to Information Assurance with respect to web technologies.
CYBR 8470	Secure Web Application Development	3
Web applications are pervasive fixtures of 21st century culture. Web application security is an inclusive, amorphous, term that spans application level security, i.e. ensuring high level code cannot be exploited, server level security, i.e. ensuring server resources such as databases and file systems cannot be exploited, and network security, i.e. ensuring unauthorized parties cannot access a server or tamper with user sessions. This course cross-cuts the web application security concepts across the different categories above and takes a heavily hands-on approach to introduce students to the world of secure web app. design and development.
CYBR 8480	Secure Mobile Development	3
Mobile devices are already pervasive fixtures of 21st century culture and increasingly the internet of things (IoT) and wearables are proliferating throughout the world. As this proliferation occurs, numerous vendor-centric and third-party mobile, wearable, and internet of things apps are being created by developers and downloaded by end-users with little to no thought about the security and privacy of the information used and collected by the apps. This course examines this issue from a development point of view to a) introduce mobile/wearable/IoT architectures and technologies, b) increase student application development competencies with these technologies, and c) integrate secure design principles into the ideation, design, and testing phases during development.
CYBR 8080	Special Topics in Information Assurance	1 - 6
The course provides a format for exploring advanced research areas for graduate students in Information Assurance and related fields. Specific topics vary, in keeping with research interests of faculty and students. Examples include applied data mining, mobile security, web services and applications, vulnerability assessments, cloud computing security, and other issues in Information Assurance research.
CYBR 8900	Independent Study in Information Assurance	1 - 3
The course provides a format for exploring advanced research areas for graduate students in Information Assurance and related fields. The class is designed for students that would like to explore specific Information Assurance topics at a greater depth, or topics that are not currently a part of the IA curriculum. The class is proposed and organized by the student, with participating faculty mentoring.
CYBR 8910	Internship in Cybersecurity	1 - 3
The purpose of this course is to provide the students with an opportunity for practical application and further development of knowledge and skills acquired in the MS in CyberSecurity (CYBR) program. The internship gives students professional work experience and exposure to the challenges and opportunities faced by IT professionals in the workplace.
CYBR 8986	Special Topics in Information Assurance	1 - 3
The course provides a format for exploring advanced research areas for undergraduate students in Information Assurance and related fields. Specific topics vary, in keeping with research interests of faculty and students. Examples include applied data mining, mobile security, web services and applications, vulnerability assessments, cloud computing security, and other issues in Information Assurance research.
CSCI 8430	Trusted System Design, Analysis and Development	3
This course examines in detail: the principles of a security architecture, access control, policy and the threat of malicious code; the considerations of trusted system implementation to include hardware security mechanisms, security models, security kernels, and architectural alternatives; the related assurance measures associated with trusted systems to include documentation, formal specification and verification, and testing, and approaches that extend the trusted system, into applications and databases and into networks and distributed systems.

Cybersecurity, MS

Master of Science Degree in Cybersecurity

University of Nebraska at Omaha

Overview

Admissions and Requirements

Courses You’ll Take

Tuition & Fees

Program Overview

Admissions and Requirements

To be accepted to this program, you must have:

A Bachelor's degree

3 GPA or above on a 4.0 scale

Taken the TOEFL

A written personal statement

1 letters of recommendation

Official/Unoffical transcripts from all previous schools

Resume

To apply to this program:

Courses You’ll Take

Course Information

Core Courses

Elective Courses

Tuition & Fees

Nebraska Residents

Per Credit Hour

3 Credit Hours

Out of State Residents

Per Credit Hour

3 Credit Hours

About Faculty

Application Deadlines