Cybersecurity

Students explore theories of adult learning. They clarify the fit between their academic program and their learning and career needs, and see how their prior learning fits in. They assess their academic skills of critical thinking, mathematics, writing, and computer literacy. Students become independent learners who can effectively manage the structures, processes and expectations of undergraduate education.

We learn to engage in reasoned thinking. We learn to formulate hypotheses; conceive and state definitions, and understand logical consistency and inconsistency. We explore the differences between claims of fact, value, and policy; what constitutes credible evidence; the nature of assumptions. We learn what constitutes a persuasive argument as opposed to an emotive and propagandistic one, and critically examine them. Students learn to present clear, well thought out critical arguments in writing and oral presentations. We look at the relationships among thinking, writing, speaking and listening, laying a strong foundation for improving our capacity to write, speak, and listen well.

Assessment available. This course provides a hands-on introduction to the personal computer, Windows, word processing, spreadsheet, presentation software, the Internet, and an overview of Word, Excel and Power-Point uses. Students begin with the basics of each application and progress through intermediate level.

WRT102 acquaints students with the academic research paper as both process and product. The course begins with an intensive review of the strategies and techniques for writing an academic essay that are covered in WRT101 and then moves to selecting and narrowing a topic, preliminary research, and establishing a focus for a 12-15 page argument research paper. The final paper includes an abstract, an introduction, discussion, conclusion, and references. Students learn how to write an annotated bibliography and use APA documentation for in-text citations and references.

Learners are introduced to the foundational concepts, principles, threats, information security architecture, hacking techniques, malware, and contemporary technologies to identify and combat cyber security incidents. The interactive framework of the course will provide students with a practical sense of current and emerging cyber security trends.

This course introduces students to basics of endpoint security including mobile threat defense, endpoint detection and response, and system hardening. It also entails configuration and troubleshooting endpoint and networking hardware components. Students gain hands-on experience of large scale system management through technologies such as mobile device management, Windows group policy, Puppet, Chef, Ansible, Salt, Jamf, Altiris and other technologies used to manage thousands of systems.

This course will cover general digital security, cryptography, network attacks, wireless security, application security, device security, identity management, risk mitigation, and cybersecurity tools used by industry professionals. Learners will be prepared for the CompTIA (Information Security Specialist) Security + Exam through this comprehensive course. The Security+ certification is considered an essential qualification for IT security professionals in the workforce.

This course prepares learners for contingency planning in the event of a cybersecurity incident or emergency. An integral component to organizational readiness is the development of an incident response plan. Boards and management will rely on IT security professionals to aid in their development. This course guides learners through the creation of an incident response plan: incident detection and decision-making, the organization of a computer incident response team (CSIRT), response strategies, and recovery.

This course explores the rapid adoption of emerging technology and the growing implications for the security and privacy landscape. As emerging technology grow in all aspects of our lives, there is emerging a parallel, ongoing increase and evolution in cybersecurity risks. As this rapid adoption of new technology continues to explode, along with the volume of data sources in combination with the creativity of bad actors, the risk for organizations are increasingly growing. This course will allow students the opportunity to explore how emerging technologies such as IoT and AI are changing the threat landscape.

This course covers the ground-up fundamentals of implementing policies, controls, procedures and technologies that work together to protect cloud-based systems, data, and infrastructure. A basic understanding to the cloud and the concepts, and technologies associated with it. The course will delve into not only how public and private cloud security works but the known risk and challenges it can pose for an organization.

This course presents an in-depth examination of digital forensics. Students will learn advanced cyber-investigatory techniques including collecting and preserving digital evidence, cybercrime defenses, mobile forensics, network forensics, endpoint forensics, case studies, and the latest forensic tools in the industry to combat cybercrime.

Cybercriminals are using machine learning to launch large-scale and sophisticated attacks. Machine learning and AI provides the ability to uncover patterns and vulnerabilities that may be difficult for human security team to find. This class teaches students how some businesses are embracing machine learning-based security tools to identify and fight off cyber-attacks.