MSc Cyber Security & Human Factors

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Full time according to Funding Council definitions, Part-Time, Sandwich (Thick) out of college.

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Cyberspace is a vast, complex and still evolving community that presents enterprise, industry and governments with on-going security management challenges, as it grows on an exponential scale.

Bournemouth University’s MSc in Cyber Security & Human Factors has been developed in response to the needs of the computing and security sectors worldwide. Graduates from this course will be equipped with technical know-how to protect and prevent, and the ability to assess risk and manage incidents.

On this course, you’ll gain an understanding of cyber security by investigating threat, vulnerabilities and impact risk, the contagion of fear, uncertainty and doubt, managing human factors in security, trust management and information assurance.

Part-time students can take each unit separately as CPD, building up to a full Master’s.

The critical blend of topics that span from the boardroom through to operations has delivered real value.
Michael Eaton, graduate

Talk to a student on this course

Key information

Next start date:

September 2020, January 2021, September 2021

Location:

Bournemouth University, Talbot Campus

Duration:

September: 12 months without placement, 24 months with a 30-week placement or 18–36 months part-time. January: 18 months without placement, 30 months with a 30-week placement or 18–36 months part-time

Entry requirements:

For September 2020 & January 2021 entry: A Bachelors Honours degree with 2:2 in any subject, or equivalent.

International entry requirements:

If English is not your first language you'll need IELTS 6.0 (Academic) with a minimum of 5.5 in each component. For more information see our full entry requirements.

Course details

This course is delivered full-time and part-time.

Each unit can be taken separately as CPD with or without formal assessment. If you do elect to take the unit with assessment you can accrue academic credits towards a full Master’s.

Download the programme specification (pdf 242kb)

Core units

Cyber Security: Develop skills and knowledge for cyber security. Material, lectures and seminars in this unit capture concepts of cyberspace ecosystems and the security of socio-technical systems. The unit also covers the life cycle of cyber security mechanisms, including the design, development, management and, most importantly, how they're sustained.
Human Factors: Soft systems, human factors integration (HFI), training, trust, organisational learning, information and knowledge management will be examined through case study analysis. You'll also conduct situational awareness and workloadmeasurements in trials, experiments and exercises, and apply user experience (UX) techniques to evaluate interactive systems.
Cyberpsychology: You will examine the impact of digital technology on individuals and groups and the implications for organisations and society. The unit will also explore the psychological factors relevant to cyber security and online behaviours and identify means of promoting safer user behaviour.
Research Methods & Professional Issues: Research requires a structured and disciplined approach at all stages. We'll help you to develop key research skills in many areas from project proposals and planning to critical analysis of research findings, academic writing and dissemination. We'll also teach you about professional standards and ethical issues for research.
Individual Masters Project: You will develop an understanding of the characteristics and implications inherent in the solution of a complex, real-world problem within the context of a substantial, independently-conducted piece of work.

Option units (choose two)

Accessibility & Assistive Technologies: This unit is an introduction to the concepts of accessibility and assistive technology and explores how technology can be used to support people with temporary, situational or lifelong disabilities by helping to overcome challenges to their self-care, educational, vocational and recreational independence. The aim of this unit is to provide you with an introduction to understanding diverse user needs, focusing on challenges caused by temporary, situational or lifelong disabilities. You'll also gather the skills and techniques necessary to conduct foundational, user-orientated research with people who have disabilities to inform the design of assistive technology that can help overcome challenges during specific tasks. You'll be trained in the ability to develop novel prototypes of inclusive assistive technology with an accessibility-first design philosophy combining advances in Human-Computer Interaction, Data, and AI.
Blockchain & Digital Futures: The objective of this unit is to develop your skills and knowledge about the Blockchain technology and its usage. The material, lectures and seminars includes defining the Blockchain technology, its business aspect, issues, objectives, and challenges, covering Blockchain horizontal and vertical scaling, key basics of cryptography required for understanding the Blockchain technology concepts, different cryptocurrencies, and their issues, challenges, and networks. The unit also covers a few data analysis-based Blockchain technology scenarios and case studies. The aim is to develop related skills and an understanding of critically evaluating the key issues, challenges, and existing solutions.
Enterprise Digital Forensics: As globalisation and the Internet have led to increasing integration, the opportunities for unauthorised exploitation have also grown. You'll develop competencies for constructing plans to capture and analyse data for an investigation of potentially abnormal activity.
Psychology of Software Development: You will develop your understanding of the psychological aspects involved in the creation and maintenance of modern software systems. Software developers need to manage the social and cognitive load issues emanating from writing software given the heterogeneous nature of modern software technology overlaid with the need to include security considerations in the development, performance, and maintenance architectures.
Security Information & Event Management: The unit covers aspects the current and emerging threat landscape, incident handling and operations of Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) and the importance of information sharing for incident management.
Security by Design: Security must be addressed as early as possible when building a system or planning organisational change. However, security never seems to be a driving concern when engaging in innovation. When security is addressed, we discover how hard building security in really is. In this unit, you'll have an opportunity to build security into the design and specification of secure systems, and the broader socio-technical context these fall into.

Please note that option units require minimum numbers in order to run and may only be available on a semester by semester basis. They may also change from year to year.

Programme specification

Programme specifications provide definitive records of the University's taught degrees in line with Quality Assurance Agency requirements. Every taught course leading to a BU Award has a programme specification which describes its aims, structure, content and learning outcomes, plus the teaching, learning and assessment methods used.

Whilst every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the programme specification, the information is liable to change to take advantage of exciting new approaches to teaching and learning as well as developments in industry. If you have been unable to locate the programme specification for the course you are interested in, it will be available as soon as the latest version is ready. Alternatively please contact us for assistance.

Download the programme specification (pdf 242kb)

Entry requirements

General entry requirements

The normal requirements for embarking upon this course are:

For September 2020 & January 2021 entry: A Bachelors Honours degree with 2:2 any subject.

If you lack the formal academic qualifications needed to enter a postgraduate or post-experience degree, there are several alternative routes to follow. Some of these are based on experience. Contact the Future Students Enquiry Team for more information.

International entry requirements

You can find details of the international qualifications we accept, and what level of study they apply to, on our entry requirements for non-UK students' page.

Please see below some examples of the qualifications for entry:

China: 学士学位 (Bachelor degree) with a minimum of 65% overall
Nigeria: Bachelor's degree from a recognised institution in Nigeria
Thailand: Thai Bachelor's (Honours) degree from a recognised higher education institution.
Vietnam: Bachelor's degree/Bang tot nghiep dai hoc with an average score of at least 7.0, or a Master’s degree/Thac si.
Turkey: Bachelor’s Degree (Lisans Diplomasi -four years) to be considered for a postgraduate course at BU.

All applications will be subject to a minimum grade and your degree may need to be in a relevant subject area.

English language requirements

If English is not your first language, you will need to provide evidence that you understand English to a satisfactory level. English language requirements for this course are normally:

IELTS (Academic) 6.0 with minimum 5.5 in each component, or equivalent.

View further information about our English language requirements.

Bournemouth University International College offers a number of pre-sessional English and preparatory programmes to prepare international students for postgraduate study at BU. Admission to the degree is guaranteed on successful completion of your course to the required level.

Your application

Full-time, part-time

CPD

How and when to apply

There is no application deadline for this course. However, if you will need a visa to come to the UK to study, think carefully about the length of time it will take for your visa application to be processed and make sure your visa will be ready in time for the beginning of your course.

Click the green ‘Apply now’ button to submit your application free of charge online through myHub, our application portal. You will create your own myHub account so that you can track the progress of your application. Don’t forget to save your application as you go; you can return to it at as many times as you want before you submit it. For more information visit our How to apply section.

Placements

The optional placement provides an excellent opportunity for you to gain first-hand industry experience and apply the learning that you have achieved through the course. The placement can be paid employment but voluntary work can be just as enjoyable.

Find out more about postgraduate placements

International placements

Employment prospects are now truly international and BU encourages students to consider an international work placement or volunteering experience during their degree. One way could be through the EU funded Erasmus mobility programme which supports placements or study exchanges in Europe.

Students can also participate in international placements outside of Europe. There are opportunities to engage with summer schools and volunteering projects. These experiences help students to enhance their global employability skills.

What support is available?

Careers

As the security of data is fundamental to any business, you will possess high marketability in the professional arena and be qualified to enjoy career opportunities in a wide variety of industries.

Potential job roles

Further study

Costs and fees

You can find full information about the deposits required and how to pay your fees in our postgraduate fees and funding section, including details of the Postgraduate Loan (subject to fee status).

All fees are quoted in pounds sterling and are per annum. Fees quoted are for tuition only unless stated otherwise. Your tuition fees will be the same for each year of your course.

Find out more about living expenses for postgraduate students

No hidden extras

What’s included in your tuition fee?

Your tuition fee covers expenses associated with your course including tuition materials, access to facilities, mandatory field trips and the following:

Materials for laboratory and field-based teaching activity
Support for finding placements (UK or abroad) and fieldwork, and non-financial support whilst on placement
A range of student services – advisors, help desks, counsellors, placement support and careers service
The Library – access to a wide range of electronic resources (databases, e-journals and e-books), print and multimedia collections, subject librarians and study spaces
IT labs (some open 24/7), wireless network, AV equipment to borrow
Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) scheme
Disability and additional learning support
The BU Language Centre to help you develop/improve foreign or English language skills
24 hours a day, 365 days a year security team.

Costs of living and other expenses you need to consider

Additional costs

We are committed to offering you value for money and ensuring there are no hidden costs while you are studying with us, therefore we have listed below any additional costs you may incur that are not covered by your tuition fee:

Accommodation and living costs. Our accommodation price guide can be found on our website.
Optional fieldwork travel, outdoor wear and footwear (where applicable)
Text books, general stationery and other supplies. Our award-winning library is stocked with a large range of text books and online resources, free of charge. The Students’ Union shops stock a wide range of stationery supplies on both campuses
Any expenses relating to placements e.g. travel, specialist clothing etc.

Repeat units

Deposits

International (non-EU) students need to pay a non-refundable £2,000 deposit to secure their place on a postgraduate course. You will need to pay your deposit by the date stated in your offer letter. The remainder of your fee will be payable on registration/enrolment. There are two exceptions to the non-refundable rule on the deposit:

You fail to meet the academic or English requirements of your offer
You are refused a visa to enter the UK, provided the reason for the refusal is not a fraudulent application.

Financial help available from BU

Cyber Security lab facilities

Our Cyber Security lab is something special. As the name of our facility suggests, it’s all about security here. From the labs we can see where cyber attacks are happening all over the world, and what attacks are happening and being stopped at BU.

Take a 360° tour

Through our outreach programmes, we invite schools and businesses to use our labs, and we have a 10-week summer school for BU students. Our previous guests include the Police Volunteer Service.

We have some remarkable software that’s used for protecting and testing systems. This includes:

CISCO FlexPod – this connects all the PCs in our labs together. Combined with a Blade server, it allows us to run all our machines and store up to 50G of RAM.
OPNET – improves network strengths, and helps us turn 50 PCs into 50 million.
NetBrain – this configures networks automatically.
FireEye – we use this to check for intruder activity and to analyse cyber attacks on BU’s system.

Our staff

On this course you will be taught by staff with relevant expertise and knowledge appropriate to the content of the unit. This could include senior academic staff, qualified professional practitioners and research students, many of whom are actively engaged in research and/or professional practice which is integrated into the teaching of this course. Read more about the expertise of other members of the Department of Computing & Informatics, and book on to an Open Day. Please note that teaching staff can change.

Duncan Ki-Aries - Course Leader

Duncan is a Lecturer in Computer Science and Security in the Department of Computing & Informatics at Bournemouth University. Previous research completed in his PhD was specifically focused towards Security Risk Assessment in Systems of Systems (SoS), whilst integrating the use of tool-support with CAIRIS. Duncan’s work has appeared in leading security and system engineering venues such as Computers & Security and the IEEE SoSE, in addition to ESPRE 2017 and ESPRE 2018.

View Duncan Ki-Aries' staff profile

Gail Ollis

Dr Michael Jones

Dr Edward Apeh – Course leader for BSc (Hons) Cyber Security Managment

Course leader for BSc (Hons) Cyber Security Managment, Edward has over 12 years of industry experience and has led successful projects in the areas of data analytics, data mining and web technologies. He is published in the area of cyber security, data analytics, cognitive computation and neurocomputing; and he has a number of patents in signal analysis and processing.

View Dr Edward Apeh’s staff profile

Professor Vasilis Katos

Course changes

Changes in 2019

Date	Changes to this course
28/06/2019	Where the change was made: Entry Requirements When the change applies: September 2020 onwards Change: Subject requirement removed Previous text: Required subjects: computer science/IT, Electronics, Law, Psychology, Business, Forensic Science/Investigation or MSc in any subject.
05/06/2019	Where the change was made: Course content When the change applies: September 2019 onwards Change: Changes to core and option units Previous text: See previous Programme Specification for details

Changes in 2018

Date	Changes to this course
17/07/2018	Where the change was made: Course details content When the change applies: From September 2018 onwards Changes: 1 new option unit: Psychology of Software Development

Changes in 2016

Date	Changes to this course
15/06/2016	Where the change was made: Course details content Changes: 2 core units are now option choices Previous text: Core units: Cyber Psychology/Information Assurance
26/05/2016	Where the change was made: Duration Changes: Only offered part-time Previous text: 1 year full-time, 18-36 months part-time