About the course
Course content
Who is it for?
This course is designed for graduate students and IT/ICT professionals who want to prepare for a successful career in computer, network and information security. It will help you to develop your specialist analytical, operational and development skills in both technical and socio-technical areas of cyber security.
This Masters programme will particularly suit students who have completed a first degree in a computing subject, such as computer science or business computing. It will also suit graduates who have completed a numerate subject with a significant computing component, such as applied mathematics, engineering or physics.
Objectives
The Cyber Security MSc aims to help you:
- Specialise in advanced aspects of cyber security, including cryptography and network security
- Information security management and security audits
- Engage with researchers to develop your scientific knowledge and skills
- Explore and specialise in the socio-technical aspects of security, cybercrime and digital forensics
- Critically evaluate the technical, social and management dimensions of computing systems and technologies from a security perspective
- Gain tangible experience that extends across all the security specific core modules
- Acquire the knowledge, skills and techniques needed as a professional in computer science.
The course features real-life scenarios and a cyber-security challenge to provide you with hands-on experience in testing and analysing computing systems:
- Semester 1 - become an ethical hacker. Your challenge: to identify flaws in a computer system by breaking its crypto components and retrieving sensitive information from an e-commerce company.
- Semester 2 - become an investigator. Your challenge: to analyse network traffic, logs and detect attacks in a company's network. You must trace hackers and bring them to justice with concrete proof and reporting.
Accreditation
Accredited by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT for the purposes of fully meeting the further learning academic requirement for registration as a Chartered IT Professional, and on behalf of the Science Council for the purposes of partially meeting the academic requirement for registration as a Chartered Scientist and a Chartered Engineer.
Internships
As a postgraduate student on a Computing and Information Systems course, you will have the opportunity to complete up to six months of professional experience as part of your degree.
Our longstanding internship scheme gives you the chance to apply the knowledge and skills gained from your taught modules within a real business environment. An internship also provides you with professional development opportunities that enhance your technical skills and business knowledge.
Internships delivered by City, University of London offer an exceptional opportunity to help you stand out in the competitive IT industry job market. The structure of the course extends the period for dissertation submission to January, allowing you to work full-time for up to six months. You will be supported by our outstanding Professional Liaison Unit (PLU) should you wish to consider undertaking this route.
Teaching and learning
The MSc in Cyber Security is a one year full-time course. On completion of eight taught modules and an individual project you will be awarded a Master of Science (MSc) degree.
The teaching and learning methods used increase the levels of both specialisation of content and autonomy of learning as you progress through the programme. This progress will be guided by active researchers in cyber security, culminating in an individual project, an original piece of research, conducted largely independently with appropriate academic supervision.
The standard format is that taught modules are delivered through a series of 20 hours of lectures and 10 hours of tutorials/laboratory sessions.
Lectures are normally used to:
- Present and explain the theoretical concepts underpinning a particular subject
- Highlight the most significant aspects of a module's syllabus
- Indicate additional topics and resources for private study.
Tutorials are used to help you develop skills in applying the concepts covered in the lectures of the relevant module, normally in practical problem-solving. Laboratory sessions serve a similar purpose as the tutorials, helping to demonstrate application of concepts and techniques through the use of state-of-the-art software development tools and environments.
You will be expected to undertake independent study and substantial coursework assignments for each module, amounting to approximately 120 hours per module. The coursework takes many forms, including programs, theoretical work, and essays, and is primarily formative, but also contributes to module assessment.
Coursework will be used across all of the security specific modules to ensure that you get appropriate hands-on operational experience of relevant aspects of cyber security, including testing and analysis. Some of the coursework may be organised in ways that shadow larger scale exercises, such as the Cyber-Security Challenge.
The individual project (full time) is carried out over the summer period, and if done without a placement, lasts approximately 14 weeks or 600 hours. If undertaken within an industrial or research placement, the project period extends by up to six months.
The assessments focus on activities that you need to undertake either as part of your role or to support you in developing your professional practice. The assessment for the project module is in the form of a traditional dissertation reporting your work.
Modules
You will cover areas of Masters-level computer science, such as research methods and scientific presentation and analysis skills. There are eight taught modules in total, comprising five core modules, two security elective modules and one general elective module. In addition, there is a full-time individual project completed over the summer.
The taught modules are delivered through 20 hours of lectures and 10 hours of tutorials/laboratory sessions.
Coursework assignments for each module, amount to approximately 120 hours per module.
The individual project (full time) is carried out over the summer, and if done without a placement, lasts approximately 14 weeks or 600 hours.
Career prospects
This MSc is geared towards preparing you for a successful career in the field of cyber security, providing you with highly sought-after specialist analytical, operational and development skills in both technical and socio-technical areas.
As a result, our graduates move into a range of careers in the IT/ICT sector, as well as the telecommunications and banking industries.