Information Assurance

In Northeastern’s Master of Science in Information Assurance program, students take courses tailored to their backgrounds. Students with social science and other backgrounds strengthen their technical skills, and those with prior technical experience add to their understanding of the context in which they will apply technology. All students learn about the key issues in information security and how technology can help resolve them.

ALIGN Master’s Degree Program

Interested in our Information Assurance Program but think your background might not be a match? Consider our ALIGN program. Created specifically to prepare bachelor’s degree holders for high-demand industries, regardless of their experience or undergraduate major, ALIGN offers custom curricula in hybrid formats on all our campuses and includes the benefits of our co-op experience and Northeastern’s global network.

The program requires completion of 32 semester hours of coursework. This includes:

• IA 5010 Foundations of Information Assurance (4 semester–hour core course)
• At least two 4 semester–hour courses from each of the technical and contextual tracks (a total of 16 semester hours)
• Electives (8 semester hours)
• Interdisciplinary Capstone Team Project (4 semester hours)

Full-time students can complete this course work in four semesters by taking two courses per semester. Degree candidates can choose to take more courses per semester, but the courses selected for credit toward the degree must remain within the program guidelines. A GPA of 3.0 is required for matriculation.

Required Courses

• IA5010 Foundations of Information Assurance 4 semester hours
• IA7900 Capstone Project 4 semester hours

Technical Track

(complete at least 2 courses)

• IA5120 Applied Cryptography 4 semester hours
• IA5130 Computer System Security 4 semester hours
• IA5150 Network Security Practices 4 semester hours
• IA6120 Software Security Practices 4 semester hours

Contextual Track

(complete at least 2 courses)

• IA5200 Security Risk Management and Assessment 4 semester hours
• IA5210 Information System Forensics 4 semester hours
• IA5240 Ethics, Privacy, and Digital Rights 4 semester hours
• IA5250 Decision Making in Critical Infrastructure 4 semester hours

General Electives

• IA5040 Introduction to Cyberspace Programming

Electives

All information assurance courses may be taken as electives. With approval from the Master of Science in Information Assurance program director, computer science, criminal justice, engineering, and business administration courses can also be accepted as electives. Examples of elective courses are:

• IA5001 Cyberspace Programming and Applications
• IA5976 Directed Study
• IA5978 Independent Study
• IA5984 Research
• IA8982 Readings
• CJ7224 Law and Psychology
• CJ7252 White Collar Crime
• CJ7242 Terrorism and International Crime
• CS5200 Database Management Systems
• CS5500 Managing Software Development
• CS5600 Computer Systems
• CS6540 Foundations of Formal Methods and Software Analysis
• CS5700 Fundamentals of Computer Networking
• CS5770 Software Vulnerabilities and Security
• CS6710 Wireless Networks
• CS6740 Network Security
• MGMT6215 Strategic Security Management

Admission to the Master of Science in Information Assurance program requires:A bachelor’s degreeKnowledge of basic information technology concepts and mathematicsStudents are expected to have taken courses or have experience in introductory computer systems and discrete mathematics. If students do not have this preparation, their advisers will assign the necessary prerequisite courses.