Course Offerings

The certificate requires 15 credit hours through required core curriculum courses. In addition to the fifteen credit hours upon course completion, the student will be required to complete a capstone project.

The following are the 15 credits hours:

CpE 435:	Computer Incident Response
CpE 536:	Computer Data Forensics
CS 568:	Computer Network Forensics
CpE 538:	Introduction to Computer Security Management
CS 539:	Computer Forensics and the Law

These five courses cover the major areas of study. The first is an overview of the entire area; the next two will be taught with an emphasis throughout on vulnerabilities and counter-measures. The fourth course emphasizes management practices and oversight required to maintain the best defense against attacks in organizations, and how to respond to them. The final course deals with the law and cases governing the area of computer crime, its detection and prosecution, keeping in mind the constraints placed on security by the rights of citizens.

In addition, a student in this field who is pursing an MS degree may wish to pursue additional courses from the Certificate in Information Assurance and Biometrics as well as advanced courses in Networking and Operating Systems

The student upon earning a certificate will have been exposed to the current trends, practices and theories related to forensic computer science.

Capstone Project

In order to qualify for the certificate, in addition to completing the 5 required courses with grades B or better, the student will have to complete and submit an acceptable written review paper or investigation. This must reflect on how the theories and practices discovered in the coursework have been incorporated into their work process. This capstone project will be submitted to and evaluated by a member of the Forensic Computer Science Curriculum committee.