Cybersecurity Minor

The objective of the program is to provide students with depth of knowledge in methods and technologies related to cybersecurity fundamentals and applications and the opportunity to apply these methods and technologies firsthand.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify and evaluate cybersecurity risks and develop and implement appropriate solutions for those risks.

2. Explain why certain tools for penetration testing and security hardening are the most appropriate choices for use in a given environment.

3. Use penetration testing tools to identify potential weaknesses and use security hardening tools to address known weaknesses.

4. Identify and apply the principles, methods, and practices of cybersecurity in multiple domains, including operating systems, networks, and software.

5. Effectively recognize and communicate potential ethical issues related to cybersecurity systems, solutions, and technology to both technical and non-technical audiences

The School of Engineering and Applied Sciences occupies six buildings on UB's north campus: Bell, Bonner, Davis, Furnas, Jarvis, and Ketter Hall.

Together, these buildings form an outstanding educational and research facility, comprising 275,000 square feet of laboratory and office space.

The faculty members of the department, all of whom have national and international reputations in their fields, are involved in research projects that have a variety of special contracts. Many have also received research funding from corporations such as Cisco, Google, IBM, Intel, Kodak, Microsoft, Nokia and Xerox.

These projects include research in:

•    algorithms and theory
•    augmentative technology for the handicapped
•    computer networks and distributed systems
•    computer security and information assurance
•    computer vision and information visualization
•    data integration and databases
•    high performance and grid computing
•    cyber infrastructure and computational science
•    knowledge representation
•    computational linguistics
•    medical applications and bioinformatics
•    human computer interaction
•    wireless computing
•    multimedia databases and informational retrieval
•    pattern recognition
•    machine learning
•    data mining
•    programming languages and software systems
•    embedded systems
•    VLSI
•    computer architecture

There is an increased international, national, and local (NYS and Western NY) interest in the field of cybersecurity. There has never been a more appropriate time to look at the ways to protect the privacy of individuals and organizational assets and secure the nation’s critical infrastructures in the wake of the seemingly daily breaches and attacks faced by both the public and private sectors. Employment opportunities include: security analyst, software security engineer, security architect, security crime investigator, digital forensics expert, penetration tester, and cybersecurity manager. The minor enhances our graduates’ knowledge of cybersecurity and expands their comprehensive cognizance of cyberspace. Such an ability will increase their opportunity to obtain an occupation in several technical fields and industries.