Banner
Masters in Information Security and Assurance
Degree Requirements

About the Program

MSISA Home

Admission Requirements

Foundation Requirements

Testing Out of Foundations

Degree Requirements

ISA Course Descriptions

Pre-approved Electives

Advising

Plan Of Study Form

Self Evaluation Form (MS-word)

Accelerated BS-MSISA

For GMU CS students

For GMU IT students

Graduate Certificates

ISA

Completion of the MS program requires a minimum of 30 approved graduate credits (10 courses). To provide the necessary background and fundamentals of information systems security and assurance, the program has four courses that are required of all students:

  • CS 571 Operating Systems
  • CS 555 Computer Communications and Networking
  • ISA 562 Information Security Theory and Practice
  • ISA 563 Fundamentals of Systems Programming

Security Elective Courses

To provide breadth and depth of knowledge in information security and assurance, the degree program requires four electives to be taken from the following list of ISA courses:
  • ISA 564 - Security Laboratory
  • ISA 640 - Programming Language Security
  • ISA 650 - Security Policy
  • ISA 652 - Security Audit and Compliance Testing
  • ISA 656 - Network Security
  • ISA 673 - Operating Systems Security
  • ISA 674 - Intrusion Detection
  • ISA 681 - Secure Software Design
  • ISA 763 - Security Protocol Analysis
  • ISA 764 - Security Experimentation
  • ISA 765 - Database and Distributed Systems Security
  • ISA 767 - Secure Electronic Commerce
  • ISA 785 - Research in Digital Forensics
  • IT 862 - Computer Security Models and Architectures
  • IT 962 - Advanced Topics in Computer Security

Other Electives

The remaining two courses may be chosen from any combination of (1) courses at the ISA 600 and 700 level, including ISA 697, ISA 796, ISA 797, and ISA 798; (2) courses at the CS 500, 600, and 700 level; and (3) from the list of preapproved electives . A thesis option is available whereby a student may elect to complete a 6-credit thesis.