Cyber Security Major

The Bachelor of Science in Cybersecurity program is designed to provide students the critical knowledge and skills required to keep the information and communication systems and their data safe, secure and resilient against modern-day attacks. Students aspiring to join the cyber workforce to protect our critical information, systems and infrastructure against cyber-attacks will find this cybersecurity program to be a rewarding and challenging experience. The program focuses on hands-on learning supported by traditional lecture-based teaching and, hence, will provide students with ample opportunities to develop proficiency in subfields of cybersecurity, such as cyber defense, operations, and forensics.

The BS Cybersecurity curriculum provides a computing-based foundation and covers a broad spectrum of concepts applicable to a range of cybersecurity specializations. The core courses within the program provide the requisite body of knowledge regarding essential cybersecurity concepts and skills. Students begin with foundational mathematics and computer science programming coursework in their first year along with a special cybersecurity exploration course introducing the principles and concepts of cybersecurity. In the second and third years, students engage in core computer science and cybersecurity courses that emphasize hands-on laboratory experiences (e.g., web development, firewalls, intrusion detection systems, vulnerability assessment). These foundational cybersecurity courses prepare students for a capstone cybersecurity project, and upper-level focus areas (cyber operations and cyber defense), technical electives or internships. Besides the technical rigor, the program throughout its curriculum strongly emphasizes the socio-ethical aspects associated with the field.

Facilities

Sacred Heart University has a dedicated cybersecurity lab on its main campus with several capabilities built to facilitate and enhance the learning experience for students. The facility supports a floor to ceiling technology rack that houses several state-of-the-art technologies to run and operate the lab environment. The cyber lab has a security operations center (SOC) analyst workspace to monitor for cyber threats, vulnerabilities, and other technology risks that exist on the Internet. Additionally, the lab environment is equipped with over 35 functioning workstations that leverage state-of-the-art technologies, such as virtualization and security software’s like Fortigate-60D UTM and Splunk. There are three state-of-the-art classroom computer labs dedicated to computer science courses and a dedicated computer lab exclusively for CS/IT majors. There is also a Networking/UNIX lab equipped with 13 Linux machines and a variety of Cisco routers. This closed LAN laboratory is used for networking and UNIX shell programming courses. All workstations are equipped with state-of-the-art applications for programming and software development related assignments and projects.

Program Requirements

The Cybersecurity major requires the completion of 81 credits. CS 110 may be required if a student has no previous programming experience.