Stopping the next devastating cyberattack requires building secure systems from the bottom up. The ECE Cybersecurity thread teaches the fundamentals of secure system design and cyber defense. Courses in this thread span from building new secure hardware platforms and vulnerability analysis to malware investigation and cyberattack response. As cyberattacks continue to affect our everyday lives, this thread provides students with an increasingly in-demand skill set for careers that transcend the tech industry’s cybersecurity goals.

Sample of related career paths:

• Hardware Security Engineer – design custom integrated circuits for security purposes including encryption, decryption and authentication
• Side Channel Engineer – analyze hardware for power and other side-channel attacks aiming to discover secrets such as keys
• Software threat analyst - joins a team of software experts to perform intelligent software analysis (including vulnerability research), reverse engineering (including malware analysis), and research and development on secure cyber systems.
• Software security engineer - develop software and/or firmware with specific attention to vulnerability hardening and resiliency, build and apply security patches, vulnerability discovery and development to test the robustness of critical software systems.