The aim of this programme is to provide learners with essential research and expert technical knowledge and competence of the most important technical concepts of security applied in emerging areas such as cloud security and forensics. The course is technical and practical in nature, uniquely embedded in industry, and develops in-depth expertise of core technical topics within the area of Cyber Security such as information security, secure programming, network security, penetration testing, IT law and ethics, and technologies and tools that support application and service vulnerability detection, incident detection, data and log retrieval and analysis. The course also provides a narrower focus into Forensics and Cloud Security through the two specialisations that are offered to the learners. A unique feature of this course is the strong collaboration of the College with the industry in the development and delivery of the MSc in Cyber Security course. The Domain Context module creates a space into which companies may provide in-house training, professional certification preparation or deliver knowledge on the latest technologies currently used by specific cyber security companies. The Internship module also connects students with the industry and supports students’ employment in the cyber security domain.

Several reports highlight the skills shortage in Cyber Security. The Bureau of Labour Statistics projects 36.5 percent employment growth for information and cyber security experts and analysts by 2022. This field has the fastest growth rate when compared with the rest of the technology jobs. The US News and World Report published in 2015 has highlighted that information security is considered one of the best jobs for the next seven years. Ireland has a strong presence of companies in Cyber Security. The top 5 worldwide companies are located in Ireland. Considering the high demand of various type of jobs in the Cyber Security domain that currently exist in the market, graduates from this course may work in the following roles: information security analyst, secure application developer, cyber security tester, risk advisory on information security and forensics, cloud security analyst, etc.