Skip to Content

College of Information and Communications

  • cybersecurity - computers and students

Information Security and Cyber Leadership

Cyber threats and data breaches are bringing new challenges to the public and private sectors. The demand for information security specialists and cyber leaders is at an all-time high. This flexible, 100% online master’s degree will provide you with both the technical, social and people skills needed to succeed in this rapidly expanding field.

In their 2017 report, a leading cyber professional organization, (ISC)2, predicted 1.8 million unfilled jobs in the cybersecurity workforce in 2022. Statistics reveal that the cyber industry unemployment rate has stayed close to zero for over a decade, and someone with less than five years of experience in cybersecurity can earn around $100,000 a year. 

Learning Outcomes

Graduates will be able to:

  • Analyze human information behavior and information security phenomena in cyber environments.
  • Explain the structure of a cybersecurity system, implement the system, handle the system operations, and evaluate the system efficiency.
  • Strategically analyze the external and internal environments of an organization to create and facilitate a human-systems integration (HSI) process.
  • Create teams for HSI environments and facilitate team communication and coordination.
  • Develop information policies and regulations for HSI and cyber information security system environments.

Classes

30 Credit Hours: 4 Core Courses + 6 Elective Courses 

Students in this program must complete 30 hours of coursework: 12 credits of required courses and 18 credits of electives.

Core Courses (12 Credit Hours): 

  • Challenges in Information-Intensive Organization Administration
  • Seminar in Information Science
  • Leadership and Ethics in Information Security
  • Seminar in Applied Information Systems for Information Specialists

Electives (18 Credit Hours): 

18 credits of electives at the 500 level or above. Advisors will help students select elective courses appropriate to their areas of professional interest. Students have the opportunity to take courses in the Darla Moore School of Business, engage in a virtual cyber range through our partnership with Fusion Cyber, and take special topics courses taught by USC cyber security leaders.


Challenge the conventional. Create the exceptional. No Limits.