Online Master of Science in Cybersecurity (MS)

Help Fill the Talent Gap for Skilled Cybersecurity Professionals.

Cybersecurity, as many know, is the crucial practice of protecting computer systems, networks, programs, and data from digital attacks. Some of the most common attacks include ransomware, phishing, malware, and more sophisticated threats from hackers and cyber criminals. These attacks are aimed at accessing, changing, or destroying sensitive information, extorting money from users, or interrupting normal business processes.

Between 2018 and 2022, in fact, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Internet Crimes Complaint Center (IC3) documented a whopping 3.26 million complaints which totaled a loss of 2.76 billion dollars. From this statistic alone, you can see why highly trained cybersecurity professionals are needed now more than ever.

With Michigan Tech's Online MS in Cybersecurity, you can acquire the specialized knowledge and skills to meet the growing demand for cybersecurity professionals.

Why Study Cybersecurity at Michigan Tech?

Quality of the Curriculum

Michigan Tech's cybersecurity master's degree is an interdisciplinary collaborative program that draws on the expertise of the departments of Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, as well as the College of Computing. The program's rigorous curriculum is based on applied research, theory, and direct industry feedback.

MTU's Cybersecurity Reputation

You'll be earning your degree and building in-demand skills at a university renowned for the excellence of its cybersecurity research and education. In fact, the US National Security Agency designated MTU as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Research (CAE-R). This CAE-R designation, establishing that Michigan Tech has met the rigorous requirements set forth by the NSA, extends through the 2029 academic year.

Customize Your Cybersecurity Degree

To complete your 30-credit course-work based degree, you will take four core courses (12 credits) and at least four courses in one specialization area (12 credits). You will then complete your degree with up to two courses (6 credits) of electives.

Required (Core) Courses

Young black cybersecurity professional stands in front of a computer mainframe while working on her laptop.

Important Note on Core Courses:

Students take either CS 4471, CS 5471, or SAT 5111.
Similarly, they choose
- between CS 4001 or CS 5001.
- and either CS 5350 OR MA 3203.

CS 4001 - National Cybersecurity Policy and Law

This course introduces the role of government in securing cyberspace. Students examine national cybersecurity policy and law. Topics include federal, state, and local entities involved in cybersecurity, relevant laws and regulations, concepts of civil liberties, intellectual property, privacy, development/diffusion of standards, and national security.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (3-0-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Class(es): Senior

CS 4471 - Computer Security

This covers fundamentals of computer security. Topics include practical cryptography, access control, security design principles, physical protections, malicious logic, program security, intrusion detection, administration, legal and ethical issues.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-3-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall
Restrictions: May not be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate
Pre-Requisite(s): CS 3411 or CS 4411

CS 4723 - Network Security

Learn fundamental of cryptography and its application to network security. Understand network security threats, security services, and countermeasures. Acquire background knowledge on well known network security protocols. Address open research issues in network security.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (3-0-0)
Semesters Offered: Spring, Summer
Pre-Requisite(s): EE 4272 or CS 4461 or SAT 4812

CS 5001 - National Cybersecurity Policy and Law

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (3-0-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall

CS 5350 - Modern Cryptography

This course covers the knowledge of modern cryptography including perfectly secret encryption, private-key cryptography, hash functions, etc. Course focuses on how to conduct crypto-analysis and how to achieve provable security for different cryptographic protocols based on the "proof by reduction" techniques.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-3-0)
Semesters Offered: Spring
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate
Pre-Requisite(s): CS 4471 or CS 5471 or CS 4723 or EE 4723

CS 5471 - Computer Security

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-3-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall, Spring
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate
Pre-Requisite(s): CS 3411 or CS 4411

MA 3203 - Introduction to Cryptography

Topics include private-key cryptography, shift substitution, permutation and stream ciphers, cryptanalysis, perfect secrecy, public-key cryptography, and the RSA cryptosystem.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-3-0)
Semesters Offered: Spring, Summer
Pre-Requisite(s): MA 2320 or MA 2321 or MA 2330

SAT 5111 - Security and Privacy

Examines key health information security, policy, and procedures. Investigates how to distinguish elements of a security audit and key security policies. Students will conduct offensive and defensive cybersecurity methods to understand the security and privacy landscape of healthcare and its sensitive information, Analyzes roles of people maintaining health information security.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-3-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall, Summer
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate

Specialization Courses: Choose One Focus Area

Trusted Software

CS 4710 - Model-Driven Software Development

This course focuses on modeling of software systems, automated analysis, verification, and design. Topics include declarative and imperative modeling languages, software tools for automated analysis and verification of models, specification languages for implementation, and formal specification languages for inductive verification of systems.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-3-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall, Summer
Pre-Requisite(s): CS 3311 and CS 3141(C)

CS 4711 - Software Processes and Management

Focuses on the software development process and related management issues. Topics include software process models, the Capability Maturity Model, process tools, use of standards, software maintenance, configuration management, project planning and tracking, team management, and measurement and estimation.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-3-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall
Pre-Requisite(s): CS 3141

CS 4740 - Development of Trusted Software

This course exposes students to the concepts of secure software development. Students will learn how to develop high-quality software that is resistant against cyber-attacks, by minimizing the number of vulnerabilities that can be exploited by an attacker. Topics include access control, race conditions, buffer overflows, and code injection.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-3-0)
Semesters Offered: Spring
Pre-Requisite(s): CS 4471

CS 5740 - Development of Trusted Software

This course exposes students to the concepts of secure software development. Students will learn how to develop high-quality software that is resistant against cyber- attacks, by minimizing the number of vulnerabilities that can be exploited by an attacker. Topics include: access control, race conditions, buffer overflows, code injection, fuzzing techniques, cryptographic software, web application and Java security.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (3-0-0)
Semesters Offered: Spring
Pre-Requisite(s): CS 4471

CS 5751 - Dependable & Secure CPS-IoT

The scope of this course includes both theoretical and practical aspects of developing dependable and secure networks of resource-constrained devices. Topics include: rigorous modeling; design verification and validation; programming paradigms; and dependability aspects such as fault tolerance, security, and energy efficiency.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (2-0-1)
Semesters Offered: Spring
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following College(s): College of Engineering, College of Computing; Must be enrolled in one of the following Class(es): Junior, Senior
Pre-Requisite(s): CS 2311

SAT 5817 - Security Penetration Testing and Audit

To provide knowledge and demonstrated methods to help prevent security breaches and develop safeguards to protect sensitive information and confidential data. Student learn offensive and defensive security concepts, audit best-practices.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (3-0-0)
Semesters Offered: Spring, in even years
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate
Pre-Requisite(s): SAT 5111

Students take either CS4740 OR CS5740.

Applied Network Security

SAT 4812 - Cyber Security II

An advanced course in cyber security that covers topics such as adversarial thinking, exploiting game theory, human-centered cyber security, economic decision making in cyber security, and the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) framework topics of Analyze, Collect and Operate, Investigate, Operate and Maintain, Oversee and Govern, Protect and Defend, and Securely Provision.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-2-2)
Semesters Offered: Spring, Summer
Pre-Requisite(s): SAT 3812

SAT 5111 - Security and Privacy

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-3-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall, Summer
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate

SAT 5165 - Introduction to Big Data Analytics

Course will cover concepts and techniques used to analyze big data. We will cover the most important big data processing frameworks (e.g. Hadoop, spark) and GPU techniques. The students will acquire the knowledge of Hadoop architecture, MapReduce, Spark and the capability of programming to analyze big data.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (3-0-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall, Spring
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate
Pre-Requisite(s): SAT 4650

SAT 5520 - Machine Learning in Security

Study of artificial intelligence and machine learning in cybersecurity. Topics include fundamentals of common machine learning and deep learning algorithms, intelligent threat detection and analysis, user behavior analytics, machine learning in hacking, and automated cybersecurity systems.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-2-2)
Semesters Offered: Spring
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate
Pre-Requisite(s): SAT 3812 and SAT 4310

SAT 5816 - Digital Forensics

Introduction of the basic principles and technology of digital forensics, including acquisition, preservation, and recovery and investigation of the evidence stored in digital devices.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-2-2)
Semesters Offered: Fall
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate
Pre-Requisite(s): SAT 2511 and (SAT 2711 or SAT 5111)

SAT 5817 - Security Penetration Testing and Audit

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (3-0-0)
Semesters Offered: Spring, in even years
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate
Pre-Requisite(s): SAT 5111

Systems Security

CS 4130 - Compiler Design and Optimization

Design, theory, and programming language translators and the theory and implementation of optimizers. Topics include: intermediate representations, advanced code generation, control-and data-flow analysis, advanced compiler optimization, dynamic compilation, global register allocation and instruction scheduling.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-3-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall, Spring
Restrictions: May not be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate
Pre-Requisite(s): CS 4121

CS 4411 - Operating Systems

Principles of the design and implementation of operating systems. Topics include: process management, process scheduling, memory management, I/O, file systems. Includes a significant implementation component.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-3-0)
Semesters Offered: Spring
Pre-Requisite(s): CS 3331 and CS 3421

CS 4431 - Computer Architecture

Advanced course in architecture of high-performance computer systems. Topics include instruction-set design, simulation of processor architectures, multiple functional units, pipelining, dynamically scheduled pipelines, speculative execution, multi-core and multi-processor systems, advanced I/O subsystems and analytic models of architectural features of processors.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-3-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall, Spring
Pre-Requisite(s): CS 3421

CS 5472 - Advanced Topics in Computer Security

This course covers various aspects of producing trusted computer information systems. Topics include network perimeter protection, host-level protection, authentication technologies, formal analysis techniques, and intrusion detection. Current systems will be examined and critiqued.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-3-0)
Semesters Offered: Spring
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate
Pre-Requisite(s): CS 4471 or CS 5471 or SAT 4520

SAT 5816 - Digital Forensics

Introduction of the basic principles and technology of digital forensics, including acquisition, preservation, and recovery and investigation of the evidence stored in digital devices.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-2-2)
Semesters Offered: Fall
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate
Pre-Requisite(s): SAT 2511 and (SAT 2711 or SAT 5111)

Artificial Intelligence

CS 4811 - Artificial Intelligence

Fundamental ideas and techniques that are used in the construction of problem solvers that use Artificial Intelligence technology. Topics include knowledge representation and reasoning, problem solving, heuristics, search heuristics, inference mechanisms, and machine learning.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-3-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
Restrictions: May not be enrolled in one of the following Class(es): Freshman, Sophomore
Pre-Requisite(s): CS 2311 and CS 2321 and (CS 3411 or CS 3421 or CS 3425 or CS 3331) and MA 3720

CS 5472 - Advanced Topics in Computer Security

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-3-0)
Semesters Offered: Spring
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate
Pre-Requisite(s): CS 4471 or CS 5471 or SAT 4520

CS 5481 - Systems Performance Analysis

Analysis of the performance of computer systems. Topics include: measurement techniques and tools, probability theory and statistics, experiment design and analysis, simulation, queuing models. Course includes a significant experimental component.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-3-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall, Spring
Pre-Requisite(s): CS 4411 and MA 2720

SAT 5165 - Introduction to Big Data Analytics

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (3-0-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall, Spring
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate
Pre-Requisite(s): SAT 4650

SAT 5520 - Machine Learning in Security

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-2-2)
Semesters Offered: Spring
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate
Pre-Requisite(s): SAT 3812 and SAT 4310

Students take either CS 5831 OR SAT 5165, CS 5481 OR SAT 5520.

Electives (General Courses)

In addition to the courses below, you may choose from CS, EE, or SAT 4000 to 5000-level courses. However, SAT 5988, which may count for up to 6 credits, requires instructor consultation and approval.

BA 5200 - Information Systems Management and Data Analytics

Focuses on management of IS/IT within the business environment. Topics include IT infrastructure and architecture, organizational impact of innovation, change management, human-machine interaction, and contemporary management issues involving data analytics. Class format includes lecture, group discussion, and integrative case studies.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (3-0-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall, Spring
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate; Must be enrolled in one of the following Major(s): Accounting, Data Science, Engineering Management, Applied Natural Resource Econ., Health Informatics, Accounting and Analytics, Business Administration

EET 4501 - Applied Machine Learning

Introduces the general concepts and algorithms of machine learning (ML) with their implementation and applications to practical problems of modeling, detection, estimation, prediction, and control. Applications include cybersecurity, healthcare, robot vision, remote sensing, automation, and natural language processing.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (3-0-0)
Semesters Offered: Spring
Restrictions: May not be enrolled in one of the following Class(es): Freshman, Sophomore
Pre-Requisite(s): SAT 4310 or SAT 4650 or CS 1121

SAT 5988 - Practical Experience in Cybersecurity

Independent study of a practical problem, design project, or emerging technology in cybersecurity. Preparation of a written report and/or oral presentation.

Credits: variable to 3.0; Repeatable to a Max of 6
Semesters Offered: On Demand
Restrictions: Permission of instructor required; Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate

UN 5550 - Introduction to Data Science

Introduces concepts and skills fundamental to Data Science including: getting data, data wrangling, exploratory data analysis, basic statistics, data visualization, data modeling, and learning. The course introduces data science from different perspectives: computer science, mathematics, business, engineering, and more.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (2-0-2)
Semesters Offered: Fall, Spring
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate; Must be enrolled in one of the following Major(s): Data Science

Meet the Demand for Cybersecurity Professionals.

Cybersecurity, for many organizations, is a top if not the top priority. However, many of these same organizations are struggling to fill critical positions. The United States is one of the countries facing a shortage of advanced cybersecurity professionals.

Cybersecurity Employment By the Numbers

457,398: The current total number of cybersecurity job openings in the US.
85,000,000: The expected global need for cybersecurity workers by 2030.
32%: The expected career growth of cybersecurity analysts over the next decade (USBLS).
$120,360: The 2023 median salary of an information security analyst .
41,333: The total number (as of March 2025) of job openings for cybersecurity engineers

Examples of Cybersecurity Careers

Cybersecurity specialists are needed everywhere, whether they focus on design and implementation, oversight and governance, implementation and operation, protection and defense, or other key areas. Below is just a selection of some cybersecurity careers.

Generally, the jobs with higher pay require more advanced education, such as master's degrees. The salaries below correspond to average salaries for US advertised jobs between September 2023 and August 2024. Need more proof about available careers and the talent gap? Check out this interactive map.

Two men look at a computer trying to solve a cybersecurity problem.

Cybersecurity Manager: $152,403
Cybersecurity Architect: $150,989
Cybersecurity Engineer: $143,992
Penetration and Vulnerability Tester: $132,457
Cybersecurity Consultant: $125,243
Cybersecurity Analyst: $115,795
Incident and Intrusion Analyst: $101,130
Cybercrime Analyst: $100,150

Get Started on Your Online MS in Cybersecurity!

Graduate with the toolkit to address the most pressing cybersecurity challenges that public, private, and non-governmental institutions face. Take the next steps on your online educational journey at Michigan Tech. We are here to answer your questions and to help you succeed in your online program.