Curriculum | 15 Credit Hours
In this hands-on program, you'll learn from some of the world's top cybersecurity experts, gaining hands-on technical and leadership experience you can apply immediately on the job. This is the curriculum order for this program.
Required Core Courses | 9 credit hours
- SANS Course: MGT512: Leadership Essentials for Security Managers Training Course
Certification: GIAC Security Leadership (GSLC)
3 Credit Hours
ISE 5001 uses case studies, group discussions, team-based exercises, in-class games, and a security leadership simulation to help you absorb both technical and management topics. Covering a wide range of security topics across the entire security stack, this course empowers you to become an effective security manager and get up to speed quickly on information security issues and terminology. Data, network, host, application, and user controls are examined in conjunction with key management topics that address the overall security lifecycle, including governance and technical controls focused on protecting, detecting, and responding to security issues.
The course will prepare you to:
- Make sense of different cybersecurity frameworks
- Understand and analyze risk
- Understand the pros and cons of different reporting relationships
- Manage technical personnel
- Build a vulnerability management program
- Inject security into modern DevOps workflows
- Strategically leverage a SIEM
- Change behavior and build a security-aware culture
- Effectively manage security projects
- Enable modern security architectures and the cloud
- SANS Course: SEC530: Defensible Security Architecture and Engineering: Implementing Zero Trust for the Hybrid Enterprise
Certification: GIAC Defensible Security Architect Certification (GDSA)
3 Credit Hours
Effective security requires a balance between detection, prevention, and response capabilities. Defensible Security Architecture and Engineering is designed to help you establish and maintain a holistic and layered approach to security. You’ll explore the fundamentals of up-to-date defensible security architecture and how to engineer it, with a heavy focus on leveraging current infrastructure (and investment), including switches, routers, and firewalls. You’ll learn how to reconfigure these devices to significantly improve your organization’s prevention capabilities in the face of today's dynamic threat landscape. The course will also delve into the latest technologies and their capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses. Multiple hands-on labs will reinforce key points in the course and provide actionable skills you will be able to leverage immediately at work.
- SANS Course: MGT514: Security Strategic Planning, Policy, and Leadership
Certification: GIAC Strategic Planning, Policy, and Leadership (GSTRT)
ISE 5650 covers the critical processes to be employed by technical leaders to develop the skills and techniques to select, train, equip, and develop a team into a single cohesive unit with defined roles that operate together in harmony toward team-objective accomplishment.
Topics covered include:
- Leadership development
- Coaching and training
- Employee involvement
- Conflict resolution
- Change management
- Vision development
- Motivation
- Communication skills
- Self-direction
- Brainstorming techniques
- Strategic planning and policy development
- The 10 core leadership competencies
*Both MGT 514 and SEC 405 must be taken in the OnDemand modality.
Elective Courses | 6 credit hours
Students select two of the following.
- SANS Course: SEC566: Implementing and Auditing Security Frameworks and Controls
Certification: GIAC Critical Controls Certification (GCCC)
3 Credit Hours
Cybersecurity attacks are increasing and evolving so rapidly that is more difficult than ever to prevent and defend against them. ISE 6001 will help you to ensure that your organization has an effective method in place to detect, thwart, and monitor external and internal threats to prevent security breaches. As threats evolve, an organization's security should too. Standards based implementation takes a prioritized, risk-based approach to security and shows you how standardized controls are the best way to block known attacks and mitigate damage from successful attacks.
- SANS Course: MGT525: Managing Cybersecurity Initiatives & Effective Communication
Certification: GIAC Certified Project Manager (GCPM)
3 Credit Hours
In ISE 5800 you will learn how to improve your project planning methodology and project task scheduling to get the most out of your critical IT resources. The course utilizes project case studies that highlight information technology services as deliverables. ISE 5800 follows the basic project management structure from the PMP® Guide 5th edition and also provides specific techniques for success with information assurance initiatives. All aspects of IT project management are covered — from initiating and planning projects through managing cost, time, and quality while your project is active, to completing, closing, and documenting as your project finishes.
- SANS Course: AUD507: Auditing Systems, Applications, and the Cloud
Certification: GIAC Systems and Network Auditor Certification (GSNA)
3 Credit Hours
(Not available as an elective in the MSISM program)
ISE 6715 is organized specifically to provide a risk driven method for tackling the enormous task of designing an enterprise security validation program. After covering a variety of high level audit issues and general audit best practice, students have the opportunity to dive deep into the technical how to for determining the key controls that can be used to provide a level of assurance to an organization. Tips on how to repeatably verify these controls and techniques for continuous monitoring and automatic compliance validation are given from real world examples.
- SANS Course: LEG523: Law of Data Security and Investigations
Certification: GIAC Law of Data Security & Investigations (GLEG)
3 Credit Hours
(Not available as an elective in the MSISM program)
ISE 6720 introduces students to the new laws on privacy, e-discovery, and data security so students can bridge the gap between the legal department and the IT department. It also provides students with skills in the analysis and use of contracts, policies, and records management procedures.
