Program Overview

Become part of a critical layer of defense for the nation and its citizens in what's known as the next frontier: cyber security.  The Bachelor of Applied Science in Cyber Operations with an emphasis in Defense and Forensics is one of three tracks.  The Defense and Forensics track is a cyber-education program. Students learn how to defend systems and networks as well as how to identify and apply techniques used in the collection and analysis of cyber-based evidence. Through an exclusive state-of-the-art virtual learning environment (VLE) called Cyberapolis, Cyber Operations majors attack and counterattack systems to learn about cyber vulnerabilities and how they can be exploited and defended. The Defense and Forensics Track conforms to academic requirements from the National Security Agency's Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations (CAE-CO) and Cyber Defense (CAE-CD).

Learning Outcomes

• Critical Thinking & Problem Solving; Demonstrate understanding of how variability affects outcomes; how to identify anomalous events; how to integrate and differentiate continuous functions of multiple variables; and how to solve complex problems using computation and scripting languages.
• Cyber Threat Intelligence; Describe and demonstrate how knowledge about an adversary's motivation, intentions, and methods are collected, analyzed, and disseminated to help security personnel and business staff to align resources and protect critical assets within an enterprise architecture.
• Defensive Cyber Operations; Describe, evaluate, and operate a defensive network architecture employing multiple layers of protection using technologies appropriate to meet mission security goals.
• Forensics; Demonstrate and explain how to acquire a forensically sound image; understand user activity; determine the manner in which an operating system or application has been subverted; identify forensic artifacts left by attacks; and recover deleted and/or intentionally hidden information.
• Law, Ethics, & Policy; Describe and explain the relationship between cyber ethics and law; criminal penalties related to unethical hacking; and apply the notion of Gray Areas to articulate where the law has not yet caught up to technology innovation.
• Malware Reverse Engineering; Safely perform static and dynamic analysis of unknown software, including obfuscated malware, to fully understand the software's functionality.
• Networking; Demonstrate a thorough understanding of how networks work at the infrastructure, network and applications layers; how they transfer data; how network protocols work to enable communication; and Networkinghow the lower-level network layers support the upper ones.
• Offensive Cyber Operations; Explain and demonstrate the phases of offensive cyber operations; what each phase entails; who has the authorities to conduct each phase; and how operations are assessed after completion.
• Operating Systems & Low Level Programming; Demonstrate a thorough understanding of various operating systems and be able to develop low level applications with the required complexity and sophistication to implement exploits for discovered vulnerabilities.
• Security Principles & Vulnerabilities; Demonstrate and explain the various types of vulnerabilities and their underlying causes; how security principles interrelate and are typically employee to achieve assured solutions; and explain how failures in fundamental security design principles can lead to system vulnerabilities that can be exploited as part of an offensive cyber operation.