Cybersecurity, MS

Contact:

Dr. Susan Older, Associate Professor, sueo@ecs.syr.edu
4-181 Center for Science and Technology
315-443-4679

Faculty:

Drs. Susan Older, sueo@ecs.syr.edu, Shiu-Kai Chin, skchin@syr.edu, Stephen Chapin, chapin@syr.edu, Howard Blair, blair@syr.edu, James Royer, jsroyer@syr.edu, Wenliang Du, wedu@syr.edu, Heng Yin, heyin@syr.edu, Chilukuri Mohan, ckmohan@syr.edu, Jae Oh, jcoh@syr.edu

Description:

Students will be taking four core courses and six elective courses, for a total of 30 credits, with a final GPA of 3.0 in these courses, and a GPA of 2.8 in all courses taken at SU.

Admission:

BS in computer science, computer engineering, or closely related field with at least 3.0 GPA;
GRE with at least 70th percentile quantitative and 50th percentile other scores.
TOEFL score of at least 90 for international students

Basic systems knowledge
- Fundamentals of traps, interrupts, and trap handling at the instruction-set architecture (ISA)
- level, not at the cycle-simulation level
- Concurrency and coordination mechanisms (semaphores, locking, critical regions)
- Access-control matrices, basics of access-control lists and capabilities
- Systems programming basics: makefiles, C (including the care required by pointers and memory management), systems calls, shell scripting, pipes and filters, non-IDE programming
Data structures: stacks, queues, lists, hash tables, trees
Discrete mathematics: symbolic logic and formal proofs (i.e., use of inference rules), sets, relations
High-level programming experience

Financial Support:

Some, but not all, students are provided merit-based tuition scholarships.

Learning Outcomes:

This program has been designed to produce graduates who possess the abilities to;

identify and analyze vulnerabilities in systems;
assess risks faced by systems;
develop countermeasures to remedy risks;
develop systems that are secure; and deliver software components or systems that have verifiable assurance properties.

Requirements:

18-credit core:

CSE 643 - Computer Security 3 credit(s)
CSE 644 - Internet Security 3 credit(s)
CSE 634 - Assurance Foundations 3 credit(s)
CSE 652 - Building Assured Components 3 credit(s)
CIS 657 - Principles of Operating Systems 3 credit(s)
CIS 675 - Design and Analysis of Algoritms 3 credit(s)

6 credits of technical cyber security electives: Technical Cyber security Electives

CIS 628 - Introduction to Cryptography 3 credit(s)
CIS 632 - Modeling Concurrent Systems 3 credit(s)
CSE 664 - VLSI Design Methods 3 credit(s)
CIS 655 - Computer Architecture 3 credit(s) or
CSE 661 - Advanced Computer Architecture 3 credit(s)
CSE 774 - Principles of Distributed Access Control 3 credit(s)
CIS 752 - Wireless Network Security 3 credit(s)
Any 700-level security courses from EECS

3 credits of non technical cyber security electives: Policy/Law/Organization Electives

LAW 775 - Internet Law 3 credit(s)
LAW 832 - Cyber Security Law and Policy 3 credit(s)
IST 629 - Organizational Information Security 3 credit(s)
IST 728 - Information Security Policy 3 credit(s)
PSC 655 - Global Information Technology Policy 3 credit(s)
PSC 755 - Politics and Governance in the Information Age 3 credit(s)

3 Additional Credits

3 additional credits, drawn from the technical or nontechnical cyber security electives or from any CIS/CSE courses at the 600-level or higher

Total Credits Required: 30

Degree Awarded:

Master of Science in Cybersecurity

Transfer Credit:

Up to 9 credits may be transferred from other schools, upon evaluation of details by the program director or department chair.

Part-time Study:

Part-time study may be permitted, but the program must be completed within four years from the date of admission into the program.

Satisfactory Progress:

A GPA of 3.0 must be maintained throughout the program, else matriculation may be terminated.