Students | Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute

Graduate studies in cybersecurity and privacy

The University of Waterloo, in collaboration with the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute (CPI), offers graduate students unique opportunities to learn and engage in world-leading research in cybersecurity and privacy with over 70 diverse faculty members, in 16 departments across various schools and faculties. By combining expertise from these various fields the institute is driving interdisciplinary collaboration and producing world-class technologies as well as the next generation of cybersecurity leaders through industry-academic partnerships.

CPI researchers work in 9 expertise areas:

Cryptography
Data Science - Security and Privacy
Human & Societal Aspects of Security and Privacy
Legal and Policy Aspects of Security and Privacy
Network Security
Operational Security Aspects
Privacy-Enhancing Technologies
Quantum-Safe Communication
Software, Hardware, and Systems Security

Industries in need of cybersecurity professionals

Finance The industry maintains valuable information such as client identities, bank account information, financial assets, and intellectual property.

Safety Emergency response teams, law enforcement, CCTV systems, interactive voice response systems, and emergency alert systems are all vulnerable to attack.

Health Systems hold sensitive patient information and encompass medical implant devices such as pacemakers that may be exploitable.

Government Cyber attacks on governments are increasing daily because a successful attack provides access to large amounts of private and sensitive information.

Infotech The industry transmits a large amount of sensitive information such as online retail transactions, email messages, web-browsing activity, social media platforms, and user’s private information.

Transport An industry vulnerable to cyber attacks on air and ground transportation systems. As well, the industry holds sensitive and valuable information such as birth dates, and passport numbers.

Utilities An ideal target for cyber attacks on industrial control systems to access data or to cause physical damage to infrastructures.

Undergraduate courses

The following is a list of undergraduate courses related to cybersecurity and privacy currently offered at the University of Waterloo. CPI continually updates this course list with any new related undergraduate courses.

Courses that are regularly offered at the University of Waterloo:

AFM 347	Cybersecurity - This course explores emerging issues related to cybersecurity management, governance, and control, which pose significant challenges to organizations in a networked environment. The course focuses on cybersecurity risks and investigates how companies can more effectively protect their digital assets from both internal and external threats.
CO 485	The Mathematics of Public-Key Cryptography - An in-depth study of public-key cryptography. Number-theoretic problems: prime generation, integer factorization, discrete logarithms. Public-key encryption, digital signatures, key establishment, elliptic curve cryptography, post-quantum cryptography. Proofs of security.
CO 487	Applied Cryptography - A broad introduction to modern cryptography, highlighting the tools and techniques used to secure internet and messaging applications. Symmetric-key encryption, hash functions, message authentication, authenticated encryption, public-key encryption and digital signatures, key establishment, key management.
CS 458	Computer Security and Privacy - Security and privacy issues in various aspects of computing. Specific topics include comparing security and privacy, program security, writing secure programs, controls against program threats, operating system security, formal security models, network security, Internet application security and privacy, privacy-enhancing technologies, database security and privacy, inference, data mining, security policies, physical security, economics of security, and legal and ethical issues. [Note: Lab is not scheduled and students are expected to find time in open hours to complete their work.
CS 489 CS 453/459	Note: CS 489 is a temporary course code, CPI offers Undergraduate scholarships for the courses CS 453/459. See the Course Offerings List for topics available.
ECE 409	Cryptography and System Security - Introduction to cryptology and computer security, theory of secure communications, points of attack, conventional cryptographic systems, public key cryptographic systems, standards, firewalls, wireless system security, applications.
ECE 458	Computer Security - Introduction to computer security. Models of security. Elementary cryptography. Software security, vulnerabilities, threats, defenses and secure-software development processes. Threats to networks and defenses. Security issues at the application layer. Secure design principles, techniques and security evaluation. Privacy, ethics and legal issues
LS 213 & SOC 213	Surveillance & Society - An introduction to the central role of surveillance in shaping power relations and knowledge across a range of social and cultural contexts. Foundational historical, theoretical, and empirical texts that define the field of surveillance studies will be explored.
LS 329 & SOC 329	Security and Governance - The course examines the relationship between the framing of (in)security and policing as a dominant approach to govern risk in our modern era. Topics may include the policing of political protest, the Anthropocene, and the Internet. Students will analyze what's at stake with the diffusion of security in social life.
LS 413 & SOC 413	Surveillance and Society - An examination of the way monitoring technologies alter and shape social life in terms of security, fear, control, and vulnerability.
LS 435 & SOC 435	Cybercrime and Digital Harm - An examination of theoretical perspectives and empirical developments surrounding cybercrime, digitally-mediated harms, and associated regulatory responses. A range of topics may be explored, including hacking, technology facilitated abuse, (dis)information, censorship, human rights, and cybersecurity.
GBDA 303	Data and Society - In this course students will examine different digital phenomena, such as big data, open data, data-driven innovation, the personal information industry, the sharing economy, and the Internet of Things. Students will also become familiar with national and international principles of privacy protection. [Note: Offered at Stratford campus.]
GBDA 414	Special Topics in Interaction Design: Design for Trust, Transparency, and Safety - A study of selected topics in interaction design. Topics will be chosen by the professor according to their area of specialization. [Note: Offered at Stratford campus.]