Cybersecurity Major

Student Outcomes

Graduates of the WPI Cybersecurity program will demonstrate the following (parentheticals denoting the specific overlap with ABET Cybersecurity Curriculum Criteria [2]):

1. a deep understanding of foundational security principles, including confidentiality, integrity, availability, and the protection of data at rest, in transit, and during processing (Data Security – ABET [a]);
2. proficiency in programming language concepts relevant to system-level software, including type safety, concurrency models, and memory management strategies;
3. knowledge of computer architecture and digital systems, including processor design, memory hierarchies, and hardware/software co-design, with attention to the security properties and engineering tradeoffs in component integration (Component Security – [c]);
4. an understanding of operating systems, covering process isolation, memory protection, access control models, and secure resource management;
5. competence in network protocols and distributed systems, grounded in protocol design and analysis, and the engineering of secure communication across complex, interconnected systems (Connection Security – [d]);
6. a rigorous grounding in cryptographic theory and practice, including algorithm design, cryptographic protocols, and key management;
7. expertise in hardware security, including microarchitectural vulnerabilities, side-channel resistance, trusted execution environments, and the principles of secure hardware design (also [c]);
8. an understanding of modern software systems and architectures, including web technologies, distributed services, and containerized environments, with analysis of associated attack surfaces and security controls;
9. the ability to design, analyze, and evaluate secure systems holistically, using models of adversarial behavior, threat modeling, formal verification, penetration testing, and empirical validation (System Security – [e]);
10. an understanding of human factors in security, including usable security, privacy expectations, and the design of systems that account for real-world human interaction (Human Security – [f]);
11. the ability to reason about organizational systems as engineered socio-technical systems, including security governance, risk modeling, and resilience strategies in complex environments (Organizational Security – [g]);
12. insight into the broader societal context of cybersecurity, including policy implications, ethical frameworks, and the long-term societal consequences of large-scale digital systems (Societal Security – [h]);
13. an ability to locate, evaluate, and synthesize technical information from academic literature, open-source communities, and industry research, and apply it in novel problem-solving contexts;
14. capacity to complete a substantial cybersecurity project, demonstrating end-to-end design, implementation, validation, and communication of a secure system or service;
15. an ability to communicate technical ideas effectively in both speech and writing, across technical and non-technical audiences.