Cyber security is a critical cross-cutting concern for the continued safe expansion of cyberspace while at the same time it is a fundamental research discipline within computer science. Given the news coverage of cyber security issues in recent years, the importance of the topic is self-explanatory. The insecurity in cyberspace have, unfortunately, wide-reaching consequences beyond the trustworthiness of computer platforms and Internet application, to also affect the security of commercial and financial transactions, digital health, artificial intelligence, information/news authenticity and ultimately, downright to citizen’s safety and security through cybercrime.
The course targets ICT professionals wishing to specialize in cyber security as the demand for professionals increases, as a result of the previously mentioned EU regulations mandated on government and industry. This target audience would rather:
follow a part-time course,
that provides practitioner-oriented delivery and assessment modes,
with learning outcomes reflecting a specialization course that prepares attendees to be job-ready.
Yet, the department also hopes to attract some graduates to its research projects. In this sense, the programme’s primary objective is aligned with the vision of the Department of Computer Science as well as that of the Faculty of ICT.
Any Bachelor degree with a strong ICT component will be accepted. Moreover, the recognition of prior professionals in experience in cyber security will also be taken into consideration.
Contribute towards the national capacity building efforts with respect to cyber security.
Both in terms of audit and more technical positions.
While at the same time be aware of the legal, ethical, social and international diplomatic contexts of cyber security.
With a hands-on first approach and a practitioner-ready spirit.
Furthermore, complemented with the necessary technical details, critical analysis and rigorous inquiry expected from an MSc course.
Provide students interested in reading a PhD in the area with the required knowledge.
Given an application in pre/post deployment, identify any security vulnerabilities, demonstrate their exploit-ability and explore remediation using pentest tools.
Given a device that was either targeted by or used by cyber criminals, establish a suitable method for evidence extraction and decryption, interpret the encoded information and formulate a hypothesis concerning the incident in question through an investigation of the generated forensic timeline.
Given a networked computer system, a data-centre/cloud setup or an end-point machine, identify its security requirements, establish the corresponding access control policy, implement the necessary security controls using network perimeter/VPN (crypto)/monitoring security tools, and application container technologies, and finally assess the attained security level.
Given an implementation of a security scheme, based on cryptography, isolation or otherwise, explain and demonstrate how with the disregard of side channels during implementation can lead to breaking security, even if proven at a design level. Review the implementation to harden against similar attacks.
Given an operating system and relevant access control mechanisms and applicable threats, recognize applicable access control mechanisms and their limitations in terms of advanced attack vectors and malware tactics, establish which defence in-depth mechanisms in the form of efficient pattern matching and machine learning algorithms would be sufficiently effective to detect and recover from eventual successful attacks, implementing and evaluating the proposed mechanisms accordingly.
Given an operational context, both industrial and governmental, recognize the applicable cyber security-related regulations and quality standards and set an operation security policy accordingly. Implement through procedural/technical controls along with continuous appraisal with respect to threat intelligence feeds, while being aware of cross-border complications that cyber incidents might entail.
Given a cyber security governmental/industry project, apply the practical experience gained from tool usage and their inner-workings in order to formulate a work plan as well as follow up through execution, report and a critical review.
Scholarship Schemes
The Government of Malta, e.g. through the MDIA, announces various scholarship schemes that may be applicable for the Masters in Cybersecurity.
