Cyber Security and Privacy
Course options and guidance for Cyber security and privacy
What will I learn from courses in this topic?
Cyber security is concerned with protecting computer systems and their data against malicious or accidental damage. Protection includes methods for prevention, detection and response. Cyber privacy is concerned with protecting privacy in the digital realm, which includes limiting personal information and protecting it from abuse, even when data is shared with another party. The two topics are inter-connected: finding effective notions of privacy management in the digital realm is increasingly critical for cyber security in society at large.
Courses in this topic cover a range of security and privacy issues ranging from theoretical guarantees and design of cryptographic systems to practical issues in implementation and human factors. This topic is core to the MSc in Cyber Security, Privacy, and Trust, but students in other MSc programmes are also welcome to register for these courses.
What background is typically needed?
Most of the courses will assume a good command of the material in the first two (English or European three-year bachelor's) or three (Scottish or American bachelor's) years of a computer science degree. However, even without such a background, as long as you have a strong mathematical ability and reasonable knowledge, most SPT courses can be done.
What courses are available?
Level 11 (MSc) courses
Semester 1:
- Blockchains and Distributed Ledgers(10 credits)
- Secure Programming(10 credits)
Semester 2:
- Case Studies in AI Ethics (10 credits)
- Introduction to Modern Cryptography (10 credits)
- Privacy and Security with Machine Learning (10 credits)
- Quantum Cyber Security (10 credits)
- Security Engineering (10 credits)
- The Human Factor: Working with Users (10 credits) (Not delivered 2023/24)
- Usable Security and Privacy (10 Credits)
Level 10 courses
- Computer Security (20 credits, Semester 1)
Courses from School of Social and Political Studies
Semester 2:
- Controversies in the Data Society (20 credits)
- International Security (20 credits)
Courses from School of Law
Please note that Law School students on the LLM programmes will be given priority for enrolment, so please enquire as early as possible for these courses. It is requested that a note of interest is emailed to lindsay.seal@ed.ac.uk, who will confirm if a place is available before enrolment.
Semester 2:
- Cybercrime and Cyber Security (20 credits) (Not delivered 2023/24)
- Surveillance and Security (20 credits) (Not delivered 2023/24)
Related topics
This topic can be naturally combined with courses from some other topics, for example to allow:
- studying programming languages and formal methods, which are used to provide stronger, more reliable foundations for systems;
- studying data-driven methods for learning and mining, which are used, for example, for e-crime detection, intrusion detection and malware classification.
- studying distributed systems and databases, where security issues may arise.
The most relevant related course topics are listed below.
Computer Systems & High-Performance Computing