Cyber Concentration

Cyber Operations Concentration

The Cyber Operations Concentration builds upon the current ABET Accredited Bachelor of Science in Computer Science by adding six courses (3 required, 3 electives) that focus on Cyber Operations and provides hands-on experience with tools and techniques for investigating, analyzing, and responding to cyber-attacks. We project the following courses over the next two semesters, pending faculty availability.

Scheduled Fall 24 Courses

CYB 3801 Introduction to Cybersecurity (Required)
CYB 4830 Software Reverse Engineering (Required)
CYB 4890 Memory Forensics (Elective)

Projected Spring 25 Courses (subject to faculty availability)

CYB 4850 Vulnerability Research (Required)
CYB 4860 Designing Cybersecurity Competitions (Elective)
CYB 4880 Cyber Forensics (Elective)

Starting the Concentration

Typically, the concentration starts with either CYB 3801 or CYB 4830 in the fall semester of a student's junior year. The concentration can be applied to your transcript at any time up until graduation. For this reason, it is best to wait until you have met all the course requirements to apply the concentration. Your advisor can change your concentration by emailing student-records@fit.edu. Class sizes are limited. You should register early. Please note, due to the change in requirements, students admitted in previous catalogs, should elect into the CY24 Computer Science w/ Cyber Operations degree plan..

Required Courses:

CYB 3801 Introduction to Cybersecurity
CYB 4830 Software Reverse Engineering
CYB 4850 Vulnerability Research

Electives (Choose 3):

CYB 4860 Designing Cybersecurity Competitions
CYB 4880 Cyber Forensics
CYB 4890 Memory Forensics
CYB 4820 Wireless and Mobile Security (not slated for Fall 24 / Spring 25 schedule)
CYB 3810 Cyber Defense Fundamentals (not slated for Fall 24 / Spring 25 schedule)
CYB 4840 Cyber Offense Fundamentals (not slated for Fall 24 / Spring 25 schedule)
* or CYB,CSE electives as approved by program chair

Publications

Competitive security exercises and hands-on learning represent a powerful approach for teaching cybersecurity. We have published the following peer-reviewed articles exploring our pedagogical approach for classes in our concentration.

TJ OConnor, Alex Schmith, Chris Stricklan, Marco Carvalho, Sneha Sudhakaran. Pwn Lessons Made Easy With Docker: Toward an Undergraduate Vulnerability Research Cybersecurity Class. Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 24), Portland, OR, March 2024. [bib]
Curtice Gough, Carl Mann, Cherrise Ficke, Maureen Namukasa, Meredith Carroll, TJ OConnor. Remote Controlled Cyber: Toward Engaging and Educating a Diverse Cybersecurity Workforce. Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 24), Portland, OR, March 2024. [bib]
Kourtnee Fernalld, TJ OConnor, Sneha Sudhakaran, Nasheen Nur. Lightweight Symphony: Towards Reducing Computer Science Student Anxiety with Standardized Docker Environments. Special Interest Group on Information Technology Education (SIGITE 23), Marietta, GA, October 2023. [bib] [pdf]
TJ OConnor, Dane Brown, Jasmine Jackson, Suzaan Schmeelk, Bryson Payne. Compete to Learn: Toward Cybersecurity As A Sport. In The Journal of Cybersecurity Education Research and Practice (JCERP), Kennesaw, GA, June 2023 [bib] [pdf]
Maria Chaparro Osman, Maureen Namukasa, Cherrise Ficke, Isabella Piasecki, TJ OConnor, Meredith Carroll. Understanding how to diversify the cybersecurity workforce: A qualitative analysis. In The Journal of Cybersecurity Education Research and Practice (JCERP), Kennesaw, GA, 2023 [bib] [pdf]
TJ OConnor, Carl Mann, Tiffanie Petersen, Isaiah Thomas and Chris Stricklan. Toward an Automatic Exploit Generation Competition for an Undergraduate Binary Reverse Engineering Course. In Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE), Dublin, Ireland, July 2022. ACM. [bib] [pdf] [course materials]
TJ OConnor. HELO DarkSide: Breaking free from katas and embracing the adversarial mindset in cybersecurity education. In Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE), Providence, RI, March 2022. ACM. [bib] [pdf]
TJ OConnor, Chris Stricklan. Teaching a Hands-On Mobile and Wireless Cybersecurity Course. ACM Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE). June 2021. [bib] [pdf]
Chris Stricklan, TJ OConnor. Towards Binary Diversified Challenges For A Hands-On Reverse Engineering Course. ACM Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE). June 2021. [bib] [pdf]

Courses

CYB 3801 Introduction to Cybersecurity

Prerequisite: CSE2010 Examines the concepts and terminology of cyber operations from a practical point of view. Discusses ethical and legal considerations of cyber operations. Introduces vulnerability analysis and exploit development. Examines recent security-related trends and technologies.

CYB 3810 Cyber Defense

Prerequisite: CSE3801, CSE3231 Examines the defense of information technology from a practical point of view. Introduces security principles, design, methods for reducing complexity and detection of reconnaissance, malicious traffic, and covert channels. Students will both design and implement a defense architecture by leveraging risk models including NIST SP 800-37 /39.

CYB 4820 Wireless / Mobile Security

Prerequisite: CYB3801, CSE3231 Examines the security and privacy of wireless and mobile technologies from a practical point of view. Discusses cryptographic primitives and proper association and authentication of users. Examines a lengthy history of design/implementation flaws in various wireless technologies. Discusses recent wireless security-related trends and technologies.

CYB 4830 Software Reverse Engineering

Prerequisite: CSE3120 Examines the study of how compilers generate binaries. Explores static, dynamic, and symbolic methods for analysis. Discusses anti-reversing and obfuscation techniques. Examines how programmer error and compilation techniques can introduce vulnerabilities into software binaries.

CYB 4840 Cyber Offense

Prerequisite: CYB3801 Examines offensive cyber operations scenarios from both a strategic and tactical point of view. Discusses strategic concepts including the planning, execution, and phases of cyber operations. Enumerates attack methods in the cyber kill chain and MITRE Att&ck Framework through practical exercises. Reviews case studies of offensive cyber operations.

CYB 4850 Vulnerability Research

Prerequisites: CYB4830 Introduce exploit development by static and dynamic analysis of vulnerabilities. Provides a taxonomy of vulnerabilities including buffer overflows, use-after-free, format strings, and logic bugs. Examines the concept of overcoming exploit mitigation strategies with return-oriented programming and memory-leaks.

CYB 4860 Designing Cybersecurity Competitions

Prerequisites: CYB3801 Reviews the history of capture-the-flag, red vs. blue, and hybrid cybersecurity competitions. Examines the engineering and management of cybersecurity competitions. Explores the creation of engaging and challenging competitions through expert design.

CYB 4880 Cyber Forensics

Prerequisites: CYB3801 Introduces the principles and practices of digital forensics including digital investigations, data and file recovery methods, and digital forensics analysis and invalidation. Topics include data acquisition, digital forensics tools, virtual machines, network, mobile devices, drone and cloud forensics

CYB 4890 Memory Forensics

Prerequisites: CYB3801, CYB 4880: Traditional digital forensics investigations focus on the non-volatile storage devices such as hard drives, CDs, backups, tapes, etc. Over the last decade, there has been an increasing interest among the cybersecurity research community and practitioners to perform memory forensics. Memory Forensics is the technique of deeply investigating volatile computer memory (RAM) contents. Meticulous examination of RAM can reveal hidden processes, network connections, clipboard contents, evidence of malware, and a wealth of other substantial evidence. This course provides a solid foundation in memory forensics, based primarily on using the Volatility - memory forensics framework, an open-source toolset written in Python. The course ultimately re- quires you to develop essential skills in operating systems internals (Mac, Windows, Linux, Android) since memory forensics concentrates on the data structures used internally by operating systems(as well as some userspace applications).

People

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Cyber Faculty Ad

Supporting Research Lab

Please also review our lab that support hands on learning in the Cyber Operations concentration

IoT Security & Privacy Lab

Center of Academic Excellence

Florida Tech is a National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) National Center of Academic Excellence in CAE in CD Research (CAE-R).