This is the transcript for the video Bachelor of Cybersecurity
00:00:05:05 – 00:00:29:08
Dr Priyadarsi Nanda
So we’re going to talk about what is cybersecurity and, as you know, cyber ecurity is an important area right now, which is very much in demand in industry as well as in the government and the various workforces. So understanding cybersecurity is very important and how this course is going to build your career in the field of cybersecurity.
So almost every course at UTS, so they cover, or within the faculty of Engineering and IT, they actually cover something about cybersecurity and how do we actually prepare to study this course? This is very important. So before going into further detail, let me tell you a few things; as we know online shopping fraud and scams are pretty much happening every day with, you know, most of us.
I mean, we have noticed that a lot of fraud messages and how we react to that one is important. It also relates to banking scams, you know, and if you look at the statistics by Gartner and other sources, so during 2021 financial year in Australia, there were 67,500 reports on cybercrime, which was an increase of 13% compared to the previous financial year.
Two thirds of cybersecurity businesses they are under ten years old. So basically you can think about the cybersecurity field which is very young but very fast growing trade. So most customers also who are actually part of the government, or private organizations, even individuals, so everybody needs to know the importance of cybersecurity. One quarter of incidences are actually affected by Australia’s critical infrastructure.
So critical infrastructure, that’s how the electricity network, the water network and all those important critical applications, directly connected and controlled. New South Wales has got the largest and most diverse range of cybersecurity providers in Australia. So if we look at the area of importance in cybersecurity, so they are almost in every application and organisations, based again on the report. So by 2024 there is, in Australian dollars, 7.6 billion will be spent in maintaining the cybersecurity space across a range of organisations in Australia.
So as I said, cyber crime incidences there actually right now contributing to the third largest economy in the world. So it is surprising, but that is the fact, that Australian Cyber Security Networks, which is, which has estimated that there will be a need for 17,000 additional cybersecurity specialist by 2026, and this figure is actually changing rapidly.
So what should we do in terms of, you know, managing these cyber attacks? We need to have some good understanding on different types of attacks, particularly the most common type of attack, including ransomware, phishing, distributed denial of service attack, etc. etc. So ransomware is a very sophisticated attack and there’s growing importance among the cyber attackers, where the cyber attackers basically control the files and the resources within a computer and then demand you pay them in crypto currencies.
This particular thing is increasing at a very fast pace. So when I say fast pace, so in 2021, compared to year 2020, the attacks will double, and in 2021, 2022 it’s three times. So this is how the ransomware attacks are basically one of the many ways how the attackers actually extracting money from users both individuals and large organisations.
Similarly, the phishing attack and the spear phishing attack, almost everybody’s received some kind of, you know, email, unsolicited email from some unknown source pretending to be a legitimate organisation and asking you to click the link to verify your account, to verify your shopping order and so on. And you have to be very careful against all those kind of attacks.
Distributed denial of service attack, which is a very old style attack, but that also the attackers are using a variety of tools, variety of methods they can and they are being successful in launching these attacks. So what we need to know, we should have a proper understanding on how to deal with this kind of attack. So that means user awareness is very, very important.
And, of course, once you know the attack is underway or already has happened on your computer, on your file, on your resources, so basically then you can think about how to defend and protect your resources. You also need to understand and apply various intelligence procedures because right now the cybersecurity field is so fast increasing so that a lot of other associated areas like machine learning, AIE, computer science queries. So they are also getting associated very strongly with cybersecurity.
And we need to actually understand how to apply the techniques, what we learn, from those fields. Of course, you have to develop some kind of plan and strategy about the RMS. And there are a lot of documents which you could find in literature which are adopted by various organisations.
So, at UTS, cybersecurity, even if the term is new, but the works related to, you know, teaching and research which are on cybersecurity areas, we have been doing that kind of activities over the last twenty years or more and we have an established discipline of cybersecurity. So we are actually the experts. Our academic researchers, they are working on different research areas of cybersecurity related problems. Also, we are offering a lot of courses starting from major in cybersecurity, majoring in network and cybersecurity and so on.
So it’s a dynamic field of study where UTS is very much engaged in over the last twenty years. Our graduates are always in demand by the industry, by the government, because we have a very strong investor connection, starting from banks, to consulting organisations, to manufacturing, to retail sector. So we have a very strong connection with industry.
So we have a number of expert academics who who are involved in teaching as well as research, and of course, UTS is known for its best facility in terms of lab, in terms of learning environment, in terms of advice. So that is something very unique to UTS, and they will gain the best from this course studying at UTS.
So this is a picture to demonstrate how the networking labs, which are actually there at UTS within the Faculty of Engineering and IT. So you could see there are a lot of switches and routers which are actually connected and you can do hands on experiments learning various networking skills. And the next lab, which is actually the cybersecurity lab, we have a number of Juniper routers, switches and servers to give you a complete hands on, performing the lab based exercises across a number of subjects.
So the new course, which is Bachelor of Cybersecurity program, which will start in autumn 2023, is a three year, full time course, where we expect our graduates, after completion of the course, to work in a range of cybersecurity roles in the industry, and you will always be in demand. This course also focuses on various related areas of cybersecurity, such as IoT security, cloud security, mobile platform security, and so on.
Then we have the combined cybersecurity program, which is called Bachelor of Criminology and Bachelor of Cybersecurity; Bachelor of Cybersecurity and Bachelor of International Studies; and the Bachelor of Cybersecurity and Bachelor of International Studies (Honours) program, so you can decide on your career path according to the course which you want to go join.
Now, this is the structure of our cybersecurity course, which is a three year, full time course that is the Bachelor of Cybersecurity. So the boxes which are in blue, they cover all the IT core subjects and that is common across most of our IT courses. So this is the, these are the core subjects which you have to perform, which you have to complete. And that spans of course, the first session, half of the second second session and some portion of the session three.
Then we have core subjects which are related to cybersecurity, starting from cybersecurity fundamentals, information systems management, cryptography, programming and so on. Then the third option is the cybersecurity options, particularly specialising in certain areas like Iot security, cloud security, mobile platform security, project management and so on. Then you have one more IT core, which is also a project management subject, and you have to select electives from the list of electives. Okay. So this is how actually the three year program is comprised of.
So once you complete this Bachelor of Cybersecurity program, or the combined program, you will gain a number of skills which are very much required by the industry. Your ability to understand and develop strategies will be strong, particularly how to mitigate the cyber attacks, because you will be learning a lot of things within your course. You’ll also gain technical skills in various areas of cybersecurity. As I said, IoT security, cloud security, application security, digital forensics. So these are all very much interlinked areas of cyber security. And of course, you’ll be in high demand for industry, both private and government, because cyber security is one of the area which is almost looked after by various organisations. When I say various, almost all organisations.
So there are a lot of career possibilities for you, but these are some of them. For example, you may be employed as a security specialist, network security analyst, cyber threat incident management specialist, cybersecurity engineer, operations security specialist, digital forensic investigator, and so on. In completion of this course, you are very much in demand and these are the kind of career path you can choose.
So this is some of the salaries across the cyber security industry, like the specific roles such as security engineers, security analysts, security consultant, network security engineer, network analyst and so on. Which is based on this website, Indeed.com, and that was published in 2021. And things might have changed since then.
So we have a lot of course across UTS and especially the package of engineering and IT. So we have Bachelor of Information Technology, which is a purely information technology program. Then you have Bachelor of Computer Science where you do a lot of study on IT, analyse the mathematics and theory behind it. Then Bachelor of Information System mostly aligned with the business system analyst also combined with Bachelor of Business. Then you have Bachelor of Games Development, Bachelor of Engineering in Software Engineering and Bachelor of Information Technology, which is a cooperative scholarship program.
So we have a variety of IT courses across the university, all across the faculty. So if you want to get into this program your ATAR is very important. Which will basically then enable you to enter the program. There are some adjustment points which are also capped at 13 that is also applied on your course depending on your situation.
Adjustment points can be given for a number of factors. For example, completing the UTS Engineering and IT questionnaire; good results in relevant HSC subjects; gender specific; and some special circumstances. You can you can find those information by scanning this QR code.
So the key dates – very important to remember! We had an Open Day on August 27, then if you look at here, so you have scholarship application due date, then, when the passport is going to be released and when the offer is going to made. So have a look around these dates because this is very important.
Also, we are providing early entry to this program. So for example, if you are in year 11 and you want to start in 2024, you still can apply and we’ll give you an early offer, but the final offer will be based on your ATAR score. And this is only applied to current domestic or international onshore Year 12 students. So have a look around all this information which can be found by scanning this QR code.
So we’re also very good in supporting the students by providing the bridging process in mathematics, physics and chemistry. The Peer Assisted Study Success, or U:PASSS, that is also available in many subjects. For further information, or if you have any further questions, please visit this website.
Thank you very much. I hope you will enjoy this course and build a strong career path for your future. Thank you.