Today’s Top Cybersecurity Master’s Degrees Online

A. In an ideal situation, students attending cybersecurity courses would be able to work in a lab to test the many skills they learn in their courses. The good news is that they still can with virtual training. Many schools, like the university where I teach, offer virtual labs with each of their programs. The way our program works is that a student learns a particular skill, and then at the end of the learning event, they can log into the lab and test the new skill out. Since most of the things a student would do are on a computer anyway, doing the activity virtually is pretty much the same. There are two other alternatives for those in programs that don’t offer skill labs with the course. One, a student can purchase access to labs on almost any subject. This will enhance their learning activity. Second, as I did when I was a cybersecurity student myself, the student can take several old computers and build their own at-home lab.

Using their home-grown lab, they can increase their understanding of the skill they have learned. I would like to provide an example of how valuable this can be. Shortly after earning my cybersecurity degree, I applied for a job where I was required to run Nesses vulnerability scans. During the interview, the interviewer asked me if I knew how to run the scan, and I stated that I did. The interviewer left and returned with a laptop and asked me to run the scan. Luckily, I had practiced this skill in my virtual lab provided in my online class and successfully ran the scan and got the job. This demonstrated the value of online hands-on experience.

A. As you mentioned, information technology is ever–changing, and therefore so is cybersecurity. What we in the industry call the “threat landscape,” meaning where the threat comes from and the types of threats there are is continuously evolving, and cybersecurity courses must change with it. More people are going virtual, and that alone has increased the threat. Take the pandemic, for example. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of individuals who work from home has risen dramatically. In fact, a research study completed by a Stanford University researcher places the percentage of people currently working at home at over 40%.

This drastic change has provided threat actors with increased opportunities to victimize remote workers, forcing cybersecurity experts like me to reassess home networks’ risk levels and make cybersecurity changes accordingly. Today’s threat landscape must now include personal computing assets as high-risk and high-value targets, just as we do for corporate and government assets due to the often-sensitive data being accessed outside of the traditional protection of corporate and government networks.

We are now dealing with self-propagating malware, where traditionally malware required a user to click on a link, open an attachment, or take some other kind of action before it could spread. Today, however, we deal with newer forms of malware, like ransomware cryptoworms. These self-propagating malware are much more difficult to find and can propagate at network speeds.

I mentioned ransomware. This is a relatively new threat that is now wreaking havoc on large and small companies, governments, schools, and individuals. I know of many organizations and individuals who have fallen victim to ransomware.

Additionally, adversaries are stepping up their ability to evade many of our security capabilities. Some attackers have gotten smart enough to evade detection. The use of encryption has grown as a way of concealing bad traffic from security systems. Threat actors are also using popular cloud services for command and control, making malware very difficult to find with traditional security tools because it looks like normal traffic.

Finally, everyone and everything seems to be connected now, creating what we recognize as the “Internet of Things (IoT).” And with IoT comes a significant threat vector.

Businesses, the government, and individuals, through their “smart homes” are deploying IoT devices at a frantic rate, and with it comes many new security problems,

A. For me, the MOST critical skill my students can learn is critical thinking. I have sat on many panels, and this subject has arisen. You can teach a cybersecurity student all the technical skills, but “Critical Thinking” is the single most crucial cybersecurity skill because it is key to mitigating the many security challenges one may come across. Cybersecurity professionals must be able to observe the environment, challenge assumptions, create courses of action, and execute operations. Critical thinking enables each of these steps.

Another issue I see, especially in my master’s degree students, is a lack of understanding of general networking principles. If you do not understand the basics of IT, how can you hope to ever secure them? I think many master’s degree programs assume the students have the prerequisite background because, of course, this is a master’s degree. But many of my students come from various non-IT backgrounds and are changing careers but don’t have a clear understanding of IT basics. This should be required before allowing them into the program, and if not, the program should cover the basics.

A. There are a variety of reasons why a degree in cybersecurity is worth the time and investment. I changed careers from being a federal agent to cyber in 2008, and it was the greatest decision I ever made. The internet and the many IT devices are not going anywhere soon, and there is a dire need for security experts to secure them. In fact, you can just look at the approximately 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs worldwide and see the need and job security.

Also, cybersecurity jobs are some of the highest-paid. In San Francisco, those with a cybersecurity master’s degree can earn upward of $420,000 per year as a Chief Information Security Officer, and yes, you will need a master’s degree for that job.

With global cybercrime losses totaling more than $1 trillion, according to MacAfee, you can understand why there is such a need and why there are so many unfilled cybersecurity jobs? We just cannot train enough cybersecurity experts fast enough. And it explains why this fast-growing industry is paying top dollar for top talent.

The bottom line is that there is an urgent threat, the stakes are incredibly high, and there aren’t nearly enough highly educated and qualified workers to meet the demand. Earning an Online cybersecurity degree could be the best investment you ever make.