National College of Ireland

Cybersecurity

Programme Overview
This course is being offered under the Springboard+ initiative for free for jobseekers and for a nominal fee for applicants in employment. See the Springboard+ tab for more information and to find out how to apply for this course.

Cybersecurity is an essential need for a modern society in which information technology and services pervade every aspect of our lives. The Cybersecurity field has the fastest growth rate while the labour market encounters a severe workforce shortage.

This course is ideal for ICT professionals or graduates with a level 8 degree on National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ), in computing/ computer science or in a cognate area (STEM) that wish to develop a career as a cybersecurity professional; to take a leading technical or managerial role; to progress faster in their employment or to apply the knowledge in their current role. Candidates who do not hold a computing degree and are currently working in the IT sector may be considered based on relevant academic qualifications or extensive work experience. Candidates are expected to have programming ability.

Who is the course for?
This course is ideal for ICT professionals or graduates with a level 8 degree on the National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ), in computing/computer science or in a cognate area (STEM) that wish to develop a career as a cybersecurity professional; to take a leading technical or managerial role; to progress faster in their employment or to apply the knowledge in their current role. Candidates who do not hold a computing degree and are currently working in the IT sector may be considered based on relevant academic qualifications or extensive work experience. Candidates are expected to have programming ability.

As a graduate of the course you will be able to:
• Conduct independent research and analysis in the Cyber Security domain including secure application design, development and testing within a given context e.g. Web, cloud computing, and forensic investigation.
• Demonstrate practical skills and expert knowledge of technologies and tools that support cryptanalysis, application and service vulnerability detection and patching, security incidents detection and log file analysis.
• Critically evaluate the design and implementation and evaluation of a research idea.
• Analyse and evaluate the legal, ethical and economic ramifications of developing secure applications and services.
• Communicate effectively to a range of audiences in both written and verbal media and undertake self-learning in order to acquire new knowledge.

Entry requirements

A minimum of a level 8 (honours degree) qualification (2.2 or higher) or equivalent on the National Qualifications Framework in Computing or a cognate area. Candidates from a non-cognate background are eligible to apply for this programme and are assessed by the colleges Recognition of Prior Learning process meaning applicants who do not meet the normal academic entry requirements, may be considered based on relevant work or other experience. Non- English speaking applicants must demonstrate fluency in the English language as demonstrated by IELTS academic score of at least 6.0 or equivalent.

Duration

1 year.
Indicative Schedule: Monday and Wednesday 18.00 - 22.00 and a number of Saturdays 09.00 - 16.00 (Career Bridge Classes will be delivered one day per week 17.00 - day to be confirmed).

While every effort is made to schedule exams for part-time students in the evenings or Saturdays this is not always possible and all students, Part-time and Full-time, are expected to sit end of semester examinations during the day and evening Monday to Saturday

Please note that exams can be scheduled during the morning, afternoon or evening Monday to Saturday.

Further enquiries

For Further Information Contact:
The Admissions Team
Telephone: 1850 221 721
Email: admissions@ncirl.ie
Web: www.ncirl.ie

Subjects taught

Course Content
The course offers two specialisations: Forensics and Cloud Security. Learners must select one specialisation.

Year 1 / Semester 1
• Security Fundamentals
• IT Law and Ethics
• Network Security and Penetration Testing
• Career Bridge

Year 1 / Semester 2
• Secure Programming for Web
• Cryptography
• Malware Analysis
• Career Bridge

Year 1 / Semester 3
• Research in Computing
• Secure Programming for Application Development
• Cloud Security
- Cloud Security Elective
• Incident Response and Analytics
- Forensic Elective
• Forensics and eDiscovery
- Forensics Elective
• Career Bridge

Relevant Employment / Placement can be undertaken within the course timeline, generally 2nd or 3rd semester, or commenced within 3 months of course completion.

*Note that all modules count towards the final award classification.

Comment

Laptop Requirements
This programme has a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy. Specifically, students are expected to successfully participate in lectures, laboratories and projects using a portable computer (laptop/notebook) with a substantial hardware configuration. Its minimal suitable configuration is 8GB of RAM (16GB are recommended); a modern 64-bit x86 multi-core processor (Intel i5 or superior); 250+ GB of available space in hard disk; WiFi card; and a recent version of Ubuntu, macOS, or Windows. It is the responsibility of the student to ensure their laptop is functioning correctly and that they have full administrator rights to the machine. NCI IT cannot provide support to personal devices.

Application date

Application Date: 14/01/2020

The Postgraduate Diploma in Science in Cybersecurity is being offered under the Springboard+ initiative. Visit the course page on the Springboard+ website to apply.

How to Apply
To apply for this course, applicants should visit the Postgraduate Diploma in Science in Cybersecurity course page on the Springboard+ website, click the 'Apply Now' button on the course page and follow the instructions on the Springboard+ website.

If you have questions regarding the application process, take a look at their help section or get in touch with their team for further support.

Course fee

This course is free for applicants who are unemployed and who meet the academic requirements. Applicants who are in employment pay 10% of the course fee.

To find out if you're eligible visit www.springboardcourses.ie.

Springboard+ is co-funded by the Government of Ireland and the European Social Fund as part of the ESF Programme for Employability, Inclusion and Learning 2014-2020.