Department Welcome
Welcome to the Cybersecurity Department at the American University of Madaba!
Established in 2022 as part of the Faculty of Information Technology, our department is dedicated to advancing cybersecurity education and preparing graduates to meet the increasing demands of today’s digital landscape. Our program provides students with a strong foundation in cybersecurity principles, ethical hacking, digital forensics, and network defense strategies.
At AUM, we employ state-of-the-art technology and advanced software to equip students with hands-on experience in real-world cybersecurity scenarios. Our faculty, with diverse academic and industry backgrounds, are not only committed to teaching excellence but are also actively engaged in groundbreaking research. This commitment allows us to integrate the latest industry practices and research findings into our curriculum, ensuring that our graduates are both knowledgeable and job-ready.
We look forward to supporting you on your journey to becoming a leader in the field of cybersecurity!
Introduction Video for Cyber Security
See what we have to offer in this exclusive welcome video.
Academic Members
List and details of academic members of the department.
Study Plan
Details about the study plan and curriculum.
Course Curriculum: 134 Credit Hours
Guidance Plan
Guidelines and plan for student guidance.
Course Curriculum: 134 Credit Hours
List of Competencies
Cyber Security - List of Competencies
- Knowledge and understanding:
- Overview of the theoretical and technical concepts related to Cybersecurity.
- Analyze complex information security and cybersecurity problems.
- Apply principles of Cybersecurity, Information security and other relevant disciplines to identify and propose secure solutions.
- Understand Cybersecurity contemporary issues and devise viable solutions for them.
- Understand and engage in continuing professional development.
- Practical Skills:
- Analyze, design, implement, and assess cybersecurity-based solutions to meet a given set of security requirements and policies.
- Use a variety of Cybersecurity programming languages and tools to implement solutions to overcome different cybersecurity problems and threats.
- Apply cybersecurity concepts, such as confidentiality, integrity, availability, authenticity, intrusion detection and prevention systems, and penetration testing in the development, evaluation and securing the software systems.
- Communication skills:
- Communicate effectively in a variety of professional contexts.
- Recognize professional responsibilities and make informed judgments in Cybersecurity practice based on legal and ethical principles.
- Thinking skills:
- Think out-of-the-box and be ready to participate in IT- related business ventures.
- Understand and engage in continuing professional development.
Course Description
Detailed descriptions of the courses offered.
| 403171 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | 401151 | - | |
| This course provides an overview of various cybersecurity issues. The topics include risk assessment and management, Cybersecurity terminologies, IT security, operation security, Authentication (access control), data integrity, Network Vulnerabilities, Attacks, Threats, Cryptography, Defense, and security standard and laws. | ||||
| 403221 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | 401122 | - | |
| This course provides students with programming skills in the field of information and network security. This course also provides students with good knowledge in network programming using sockets, web connecting libraries, threading programming, exceptions, I/O streaming in python. It also provides students with the required knowledge about memory management and system calls in C language. Students will learn about different types of vulnerabilities resulting from bad programming approaches such as buffer overflow attacks. It will also introduce memory management and system calls in assembly. | ||||
| 403222 | 1 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 3 | 0403221* | - | |
| This course introduces beginning programming skills in the field of information and network security. The students can develop useful programs while learning the basics knowledge of network programming. This course also provides the principle of elements object-oriented technique. By learning the course topics, the student will be able to perform network programming using sockets, web connecting libraries, threading programming, exceptions, I/O streaming in python. | ||||
| 403242 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 3 | 401241 | - | |
| This course provides knowledge about network monitoring, packet capturing, traffic analysis methods and tools, IDS architectures. The course also covers Current intrusion detection techniques and their types, Firewalls, wireless, and machine learning IDS using current IDS tools. | ||||
| 403251 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | 403171 | - | |
| This course provides students programming skills in the field of software security development. This course also provides students with good knowledge in security architecture in some languages such as Java Security Architecture (JSA), writing permissions and policies files, using security libraries to provide security, key stores and key stores management in multiple languages like python and Java. This course also provides students with knowledge about code vulnerabilities and some memory attacks using C and Assembly. | ||||
| 403271 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | 903281 | - | |
| This course provides comprehensive knowledge of the types of Symmetric and Asymmetric encryption Crypto- analysis. Public ,and private key encryption, and Block ciphers. The Diffie-Hellman encryption, principles and details for the RSA algorithm, principles and basic mathematics for secret sharing schemes and visual. | ||||
| 403272 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | 403171 | - | |
| This course discusses foundations of data analytics, Discovering patterns and trends in cybersecurity incident data. The course focuses on the areas of fraud detection and communication monitoring, examines the social effects of population growth Big data enables knowledge, surveillance, monitoring, and behavioral prediction. | ||||
| 403371 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 3 | 401332 | - | |
| This course discusses the principles and management of system and network security on Unix and Linux systems. The students gain the skills needed to secure and protect Linux and Unix operating systems. The students will be able to selects and configures the most effective tools from Kali Linux to test network security and prepare your business against malicious threats and save cost. | ||||
| 403375 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 3 | 403242 | - | |
| This course discusses the ethics and laws of ethical hacking. The course covers several cases in ethical hacking which entails trying to break into secure systems in order to expose vulnerabilities and enable risk-reduction measures. The students will gain knowledge of the privacy and ethical concerns related to the professional code of conduct and the security of computer systems. | ||||
| 403451 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 3 | 403272 | - | |
| In this course, the principles and methods of digital forensics are covered both theoretically and practically. The course covers the sources of digital evidence, digital investigation, and computer forensics basics. Disk inspection, memory acquisition, and logging analysis are discussed in this course. Additionally, the training covers database, email, and registry forensics. | ||||
| 403452 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | 0401332 +0403272 | - | |
| This course discusses different methods, frameworks, techniques and processes for modelling of secure software systems. However, activities of system requirements engineering, modelling and design are a part of overall secure software system development. So it is important how the modelling and design approach is situated within various stages of secure software system development. | ||||
| 403471 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | 403375 | - | |
| This course discusses Information Security Protocols. The course provides an overview of various security protocols and current technology used in protocols. In this course, the students will focus on the protocols that provide confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of data such as X.509 public-key infrastructure (PKI), the IP security protocol at the network layer (IPsec), the secure sockets layer protocol at the transport layer (SSL/TLS), and several application-layer security protocols. The students will be able to implement different secure protocols and use secure communication tools such as SSL, VPN, and SSH to assure secure data communications. | ||||
| 403472 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | 403271 | - | |
| This course addresses the concepts of data integrity and authentication in the context of cyber security. Students will gain the skills and knowledge needed to understand the importance of maintaining data integrity by ensuring its reliability, trustworthiness, accuracy, and consistency of the data throughout its life cycle, investigate the best practices for maintaining data integrity, learn about and use standard protocols and guidelines that impose data integrity during the design and creation of data repositories, identify possible security lapses, and design frameworks that maintains data integrity. | ||||
| 403421 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | 403221 | - | |
| This course provides practical training in the application of basic technical processes and manual skills to graphic designers, interior designers and architects. Students learn the basics of font, contour, shading, texture, perspective, composition and negative and positive negative design ratios and movement. Students create many original works of art and collect a collection of their artwork. | ||||
| 403431 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | 403271 | - | |
| This course aims to help students understand the challenges and the risk of Cybersecurity in data science applications. The students will learn how to involve tools that assure integrity, confidentiality and/or authenticity of data science applications to assure the security of data. The course will also teach students how to employ data science techniques to reduce the complexity of Cybersecurity techniques by using different AI optimization methods. | ||||
| 403432 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | 403171 | - | |
| This course provides a foundational understanding of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and its applications. This course addresses important topics in blockchain technology including hashing, Merkle trees, nodes, mining, proof of work and proof of stake, consensus mechanisms encryption, vulnerabilities, decentralized computing, forks, cryptocurrencies, coins and transactions, mining, public and private blockchains, Blockchains and cryptocurrency issues, blockchain attacks. | ||||
| 403433 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | 403241 | - | |
| This course covers the IT security concepts, tools, and best practices. The course introduces threats and attacks, a background of encryption algorithms and their used to safeguard data, Network security solutions, ranging from firewalls to WiFi encryption options. The course will introduce students to modern malware analysis techniques through readings and hands on interactive analysis of real-world samples. Using the principles of reverse engineering, the students will be able to use tools that examine malicious software. | ||||
| 403474 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | 403271 | - | |
| This course provides practical training in the application of basic technical processes and manual skills to graphic designers, interior designers and architects. Students learn the basics of font, contour, shading, texture, perspective, composition and negative and positive negative design ratios and movement. Students create many original works of art and collect a collection of their artwork. | ||||
| 403476 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | Department Approval | - | |
| Topics will be assigned by the department on evolving cybersecurity techniques and related topics to support the study plan and to encourage further research by students. | ||||
| 403477 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | Department Approval | - | |
| Topics will be assigned by the department on evolving cybersecurity techniques and related topics to support the study plan and to encourage further research by students. | ||||
| 403478 | 3 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | Department Approval | - | |
| Topics will be assigned by the department on evolving cybersecurity techniques and related topics to support the study plan and to encourage further research by students. | ||||
| 403491 | 1 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | Department Approval+ completion of 99 Cr. Hrs | - | |
| The graduation project is an opportunity for students to employ their four-year experience and skills. The project targets two fundamental skills that students urgently need in their careers: software production and documentation. In part 1 of the project (graduation project 1), students should plan for their project with the guidance of the advisor. The planning includes problem definition, objectives, state-of-the-art, system analysis, solution design, and required technologies to implement the project. | ||||
| 403492 | 2 CH. | Prerequisite | Co-requisite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 0 | 403491 | - | |
| Graduation project (2) is a continuation of the work accomplished in course number 0402491. This course includes the implementation, software testing, and software documentation. The documentation must follow professional guidelines, which include problem motivation, contribution, how the system addresses the problem, record all the analysis and design artifacts, and a user manual. Upon the consent of the advisor, students must defend their projects to finish the requirement for the graduation project. | ||||
Program Learning Outcomes
Cyber Security Program Learning Outcomes
Student learning outcomes describe what students are expected to know and be able to do by the time of graduation. By the time of graduation, the Cyber Security Department's program must enable students to attain an ability to:
PLO1: Apply Cybersecurity theory and secure software development to produce secure solutions.
PLO2: Determine the efficiency and effectiveness of secure solutions as well as readiness and awareness toward cybersecurity.
PLO3: Utilize the latest tools and technologies in Cybersecurity to develop creative and innovative secure solutions.
PLO4: Function effectively as a member or leader of a team engaged in activities appropriate to the program’s discipline.
PLO5: Conduct scientific research and practical Cybersecurity projects that produce secure software solutions.